Have you heard about mobile-first indexing lately? You must have.
Mobile-first indexing is the latest development in Google’s constant efforts to make websites more visible on mobile devices.
Mobile-first indexing is a popular term these days, however, people are still confused about what does it means and how it will impact their business, what actually does this mobile-first indexing involve? Do you have to change everything or having a mobile-friendly website would be enough? Or is this going to be an updated version of Mobilegeddon?
If you are also searching for the answer to these questions, then you have come to the right place. In this post, we will cover all the basics of mobile-first indexing and what you need to do to make sure you are up with it.
So, let’s dive in.
Firstly, What is Mobile-first Indexing?
As the name suggests, mobile-first indexing means that the mobile version of your website will be the first to be indexed.
Here, it is important to note that it is “mobile-first indexing” and not “mobile-only indexing”, which means it a site doesn’t have a mobile-friendly version, still it could be included in Google’s index.
However, websites with mobile-friendly versions will achieve a boost in rankings, while the site with a lack of mobile experience could experience a fall in rankings.
So, with this update, the mobile version will be considered as the primary version of your website. This means that if you have optimized your website for mobile or you have a responsive web design.
How to Keep Up with Mobile-First Indexing?
The first thing to know is you need not panic. According to Google’s latest update on mobile-first indexing, if your website is responsive or at least identical in its desktop and mobile versions, you might need not make an extra effort (if you are satisfied with your current rankings).
Now, even if you have a completely mobile-responsive website, you need to make sure that mobile page speed is prioritized. In addition to this, images and other dynamic elements must be optimized correctly for the mobile experience.
If you have a separate website for the mobile version, make sure you take care of the following things:
Content:
Try to include all the relevant, high-quality, and valuable content in the mobile version that exits on your desktop site. This applies to videos and images as well. Make sure the formats that you are using for the mobile version are crawlable and indexable, for instance, alt attributes for images.
Structured Data:
It is better to use the same structured data for both versions of your website. URLs included in the structured data code must be the URL for the mobile version of the website. Try to avoid unnecessary structured data, it is not relevant to the content of the page.
Meta Titles and Descriptions:
Make sure that the title and descriptions are the same for both versions of your website. According to the official guidance by Google, the titles and descriptions for the mobile version of your site must be “equivalent” and not “identical” to the desktop versions. This means you can optimize metadata for a shorter character count, but make sure that the same information is included.
Social metadata:
OpenGraph tags, Twitter tags as well as other social metadata should be included on both versions of your website.
Search Console Verification:
Along with verifying the desktop version of your website in Google Search Console, make sure you have also added and verified the mobile version. The end goal of this update by Google is to base indexing predominantly on crawling website content.
There is nothing like your heavily indexed desktop version will suddenly purge after this, however, it is crucial to make sure that your thin mobile site contains all relevant and valuable content.
This will ensure that your rankings are not affected particularly when Google will cut back on crawling desktop versions of websites.
So, this was all about Google’s mobile-first indexing. For more such updates, stay tuned!
We, at Exaalgia, make sure that your website is up with all the Google updates. We remain aligned with the latest trends in digital marketing to provide solutions that bring swift results. Contact us today.