How to Thrive in Google’s New Age of Mobile First Indexing
Even if your site is optimized for mobile, you need to make sure that the quality of your mobile site is up to snuff before this change goes live. Here’s where to start:
Written by Alyssa West // Also shared on Startups.co.

Google’s number one priority is to serve their customers in the best way they know how. In recent years, that has meant sorting through emails based off user behavior, suggesting items based off past searches and optimizing links and data to assert a pages’ authority. Their next step in perfecting the user experience will involve a change in how they index sites. Currently, Google indexes pages by using their desktop page to search for information most relevant to the users’ search. But since 2015, more searches have been run from mobile than from desktop. Which is why Google is prioritizing mobile optimized websites by making the transition to mobile first indexing.
This means that when a user runs a search, rather than having their bots scroll through the desktop version of your page, Google will focus on the mobile version. Even if your site is optimized for mobile first, you need to make sure that the quality of your mobile site is up to snuff before this change goes live. An official start date hasn’t been announced, but experts project that we should expect these changes to be fully implemented by the second portion of 2017. That means you have a few months left to make changes to your mobile site and make sure your ranking isn’t hurt by the new update. Here’s where to start:
1. OPTIMIZE PAGE LAYOUT FOR MOBILE USERS
On desktop, large chunks of texts can exist at the top of a page without obscuring the site for the viewer. This is not the case on mobile. As you look at your mobile site, details like screen size and easy viewership are important to keep in mind. Be sure to keep the important information towards the front of the page. If you’re an online clothing store, don’t bother putting a large “About the Company” section at the top of the page. Instead, focus on the products so the user doesn’t have to try and click around on their tiny mobile screen to find what they’re looking for.
2. MAKE SURE DATA IS CONSISTENT ACROSS MOBILE AND DESKTOP
As important as it is to focus on the significant items on your mobile page, it’s equally as important to make sure your mobile site and your desktop site reflect the same information. It’s common for businesses to skimp on information while they build the mobile version of their site. If your desktop website has an abundance of great content, but your mobile site only has one of two articles with much less information, expect to be penalized. To avoid this, make sure you aren’t hiding or removing things from your desktop site as you transfer them over to your mobile page.
3. UTILIZE MOBILE TAGS
One of the benefits of mobile sites is they have slightly longer title tags. Instead of 60 to 65 characters, you get 70 when using mobile. This might not seem like a lot, but with that extra 5 to 10 characters, you are able to convey more information to the user. Whether it’s explaining a sale or the cost of shipping, utilizing this additional space for title tags can give you a boost with user engagement and improve your ranking.
4. BUILD LINK EQUITY ACROSS PLATFORMS
Link equity is one of the best ways to build your SERP ranking and that remains true when Google switches to mobile first indexing. The issue here is that frequently, companies don’t represent links the same way on desktop as they do on mobile. One of the best ways companies work around embedding links on their mobile site is by using separate URLs or by using a dynamic serving. Both of these options will work with mobile optimized websites, but you have to ensure that the information presented in the URL link on your desktop site is the same as the information presented to the mobile page. If the desktop version doesn’t mirror the mobile option, your link equity will take a hit and in turn so will you SERP ranking.
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