How Does the Shift to Mobile Impact SEO?
Changes in SEO Ranking Requirements due to Increased Mobile Usage
It may or may not be news — but mobile has officially exceeded desktops global market share as of approximately mid-2016.
As we continue to use search engines to find and present to us appropriate websites on the internet — Google is consistently making changes to the SEO algorithm to correspond with the changing wants and needs of consumers. Currently, these wants and needs include websites which provide instant-loading, and engaging mobile experiences. Research from the 2016 Ericsson Mobility Report concludes that the level of stress caused by mobile delays, is comparable to watching a horror movie.
There have been 2 big key changes this year — which include ‘Mobile-First Indexing’ (March 2018) which means that Google will use the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking as opposed to the desktop version, and the Speed Ranking factor (July, 2018) which incorporates load-time in to the SEO algorithm.
These changes do not mean that content, descriptions, meta tags and keywords are obsolete — because these areas are still very important. The key change is that the site’s UX is taking a stronger emphasis on determining a website’s SEO ranking.
We can think of Google’s SEO like a friend giving you a recommendation on the best supermarket to buy fruits in your area — Supermarket A might have the highest quality fruits — but the supermarket is located on the 10th story of an old building with no elevator and no shopping carts. Even though Supermarket A has the best fruits your friend will probably recommend you Supermarket B with average quality fruits, but which provides a parking garage, elevators, shopping carts, and complimentary fruit baskets. SEO is more about balance, and the overall quality of the experience.
If your business is pursuing an SEO or digital-marketing strategy, it might be a good idea to make sure your website is “up to speed” — try Google’s free ‘Page Speed Insights’ tool to see how you rank. Additionally, digital marketing agencies offering SEM and SEO expertise may want to extend their client offering to include mobile user experience optimisations. At the Google I/O 2018 conferences AMP and PWA technology were strongly advised to site developers.
As quoted by Google, “Ranking uses many factors. We may show content to users that’s not mobile-friendly or that is slow loading if our many other signals determine it is the most relevant content to show.” And additionally, “The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a slow page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content.” So we can conclude that while the overall mobile-performance isn’t a make-it-or-break-it factor in SEO — it could very well be the difference in putting you in the top 3 organic search results.
In the end, the important thing is to think about user experience, and make sure your website has great content, precise descriptions and that the user experience is optimized for mobile interaction.
