How to Prepare Your Website for Google Mobile-First Indexing
With the lapse of time, Internet users on mobiles have gradually increased and today it has surpassed the number of users surfing the net through the desktops. Anticipating a further increase in mobile Internet users, Google has announced a significant change in its algorithm in the form of mobile-first indexing.
What is Mobile-First Indexing?
Until now, Google used to crawl your website and index it based on its desktop version. But now, it will index your website and rank it based on the content of your mobile site. This change of prioritizing mobile version of websites in the Google algorithm is termed as Mobile-First Indexing.
All websites essentially need to comply with the norms of this new algorithm, if they want to maintain their Google search engine ranking and get organic traffic to their website through Google. However, if your site is not optimized for this new algorithm, you are sure to get lesser traffic.
So, here are some tips you should follow to make sure your site is ready for Mobile-First Indexing:
Tip 1: Use a Responsive Design
Using a responsive website design is highly important for maintaining the ranking of your website. Responsive design means your site should adapt to the screen size of all types be it desktop, tablet or a mobile device. Websites with responsive design not only fit any screen size but they are highly accessible and fluid on all device types and thus help in retaining your target audience.
Tip 2: Ensure your site loads faster
No doubt, design of your site is highly important but apart from that the speed at which your site loads on different devices is also crucial to the success of any website. So, you need to ensure quick loading time of your site not just on desktops but even on mobile devices. Now-a-days, users expect pixel-perfect images along with split-second rendering time for most websites. It is only if your site is fast that it will have lower bounce rate and invite higher engagement time which is essential for its high ranking on search engines.
Tip 3: Display the same content
Although, Google hasn’t clarified much about its new algorithm yet but it has repeatedly said this: “Make sure you serve the same content across your mobile and desktop sites. That means articles, the same links, and the same features.” So, it is only in your best interest and in accordance with the Google algorithm to serve the same type of content that appropriately fits in your site as seen across all different types of gadgets.
It is advisable to follow the above tips to ensure that your website is ready for Google Mobile-First Indexing before Google implements its new algorithm.