Our society has learned to adapt to the mobile web in our everyday lives. Whether you’re proving someone else wrong or you’re simply trying to book a reservation to a restaurant on the car ride over. Mobile has changed the way our society lives and even thinks. You can imagine why this is such an important element of SEO going into 2018. The following guide is designed to show you what elements of mobile SEO are important to search engines like Google.
Mobile First SEO: Why is Mobile SEO Important
The most notable reason why mobile is so crucial is due to the statistics that suggest mobile traffic has eclipsed desktop traffic, completely. Some people don’t bother to buy new computers for their homes, but instead, elect to buy the latest and greatest smartphones.
Mobile does not necessarily mean “on the go.” Studies find that people often grab the nearest device to look something up and in most cases that’s their smartphone. There’s nothing more engaging or simple than standing at a TV display in best buy and using your phone to look up reviews to find the one you want to buy. In fact, the top industries value mobile so much, that they are shifting their focus to mobile users completely; then why is this the case?
If you think about it, people that look something up on their phone, especially on the go, are more likely to buy than those just digitally window shopping on their desktop. The general use is to use their smartphone as a way to make a decision to buy something. The intent is built in as a result. From a business standpoint, what would be the point of continuing to pursue customers that are more likely to be a gamble (desktop users) when it comes to programs like Google AdWords and other forms of paid advertising? Now we shift to the future of online business, which is mobile-friendly.
Mobile First SEO: Mobile SEO vs. Desktop SEO
There’s a clear difference between desktop SEO and mobile SEO, but the general goal is very much the same. Rather, think of it as having two different versions of your website that you must care for and maintain equally. They are the same in the sense that you want to reach your audience and turn them into life-long customers.
In general terms, your focus would be for:
- Performance
- User Experience
- Content
Google’s mobile-first index
Now, a very important thing has happened recently that businesses cannot ignore. The fact that Google is switching to a mobile-first index is extremely big news for websites with mobile versions that are not quite up to par.
Well, what does this mean?
Google has a new bot that indexes a site based on the performance of its mobile version instead of the desktop.
Mobile SEO tools
Google Search Console – Find out how your site is doing in the search results.
Mobile Usability Tool – This tool crawls your site and presents an overview of posts and pages that don’t follow Google’s rules.
PageSpeed Insights – This tool shows you how fast your site loads on mobile and desktop. You will also receive suggestions for improvements.
Mobile First SEO: Design for Performance
There are three very important elements to consider when you’re making your site more mobile-friendly. It needs to be responsive, fast, and visually compelling to achieve a mobile-first effect. Using the PageSpeed is a good indication of whether your website will be eligible for the new mobile-first indexing.
Mobile First SEO: PageSpeed Insights
You will start by putting the URL of your website in the PageSpeed Insights box. Google will scan the site and tell you exactly what metrics your site is weak on and how you can improve them for both your desktop and mobile versions of the site. If your score is red, then you have some work to do. Orange means an average performance and green means you have a solid structure to your site.
Based on your skill with CMS or website development, you may not be able to fix every issue you’re presented with. In fact, some problems are because of cool effects that you intentionally have on your website that is simply slowing down your speed. Things like that, to some extent, is a matter of preference, especially if it just costs you a few points to make your website look and feel much better to the user.
Contact the experts at WebCroppers today if you want your website to be built to new, more mobile-friendly standards.
