Is Your Business Ready for Mobile-First Indexing?

Guest post by Chad Crowe.

As more than 50% of people now conduct searches from smartphones, Google is moving to mobile-first indexing. Testing has already begun with a small number of websites in preparation for a changeover later this year.

Mobile-first indexing means that Google will use the mobile version of your website for indexing. Indexing happens when Google sends its robots to crawl your site. What the bots find determines in part how your site ranks on search engine results pages. With a mobile-first approach, Google will consider the mobile version of your site as the primary version and crawl it first before crawling the desktop version.

This change could have a significant impact on any business. Therefore, being proactive about mobile-first indexing is critical to maintain brand visibility in search engine rankings.

Here are a few tips to help you to get ready for mobile-first indexing.

Check your analytics

See what percentage of your website traffic comes from mobile devices. Analyze the trend: is traffic from mobile increasing while desktop traffic is decreasing?

Make sure your site is mobile friendly

A mobile-friendly site looks good and loads fast on a smartphone. Its content should be crawlable by Google’s bots. If there is no mobile version of your site, Google will crawl the desktop version. However, not having a mobile friendly website may negatively affect rankings.

On the other hand, a site with an optimal mobile experience could see a boost in its ranking. Be sure to check images, videos, and text to make sure content can be crawled and does not slow down page load speeds.

Prioritize mobile for SEO and other digital marketing efforts

Google won’t penalize a website for having a robust desktop version (with lots of indexed pages) and a thin mobile site. However, if you have a separate mobile site, now is a good time to make sure that it has as much relevant content as the desktop version. If your site is fully responsive, concentrate on the user experience (page speed, navigation, design).

About the author

Chad Crowe joined Techwood Consulting in 2016 through a merger and manages Techwood’s implementation and account management operations. He holds a bachelor degree from Reinhardt University and a Master’s Degree from Troy University in Communications. Over the years, Chad has managed over $25 million dollars in paid search advertising. Founded in 2008 as an elite digital consultancy with core competencies in organic and paid search, Techwood is an Inc5000 member for 2017, headquartered in Atlanta, GA, with a team of 17 supporting 60 clients.