Getting your Website Ready for the Mobile-First Index

• Manage Content in Mobile-Site

Image source: Pixabay

If your website has two different URL for desktop and mobile respectively then Mobile-First Index will create a huge impact on your SEO rankings in the first place. This is because many of the websites use separate m. domain to manage mobile experience. Your current rankings are given on the basis of your desktop content. But if you’re mobile version misses those in the Mobile-First Index Environment it can affect the SEO insights of your site.

Here, I have noted down some tricks and tips to maintain mobile content and ensure relevant user engagement.

• Work on Popup Blocks – Ensure pop-ups do not appear often disturbing the reader
• Use Drop Down – Hide the access content in the drop down to make it look neat and visible
• Finger Friendly Content – Make sure you size your tap targets correctly and allow enough padding between those tap targets

For instance, if the page loaded on the mobile does not manage the content in a readable format, it might fetch the information from the other website which adversely affects your ranking in the SEO industry in accord with the Mobile-First Index feature.

• Speed Up the Site Process

When it comes to customer conversions and overall user experience (UX), we recommend starting with your site speed, specifically focusing on mobile. Firstly, conduct a full audit of your mobile site and then analyze it properly to carve a new process in order to make it well-performing.

There are ways which you can opt for in the future to achieve expected SEO results and make your user experience more engaging and reliable. Some are mentioned as under:

• AMP- Accelerated Mobile Pages – It allows you to load your web pages lightning fast compared to HTML
• PWA-Progressive Web Apps – It is an alternative to AMP users. It takes care of the web page reliability, loads them fast and allows impressive UX (User Experience).

For instance, if one uses to AMP, he can find the difference it brings in the time taken by AMP landing page and regular landing page. This is how it affects the mobile-first world.

• Make your Mobile-site Friendly

To stay high in the eye of Google, you need to follow structured markup information such as price and review ratings to make it more analytical and formatted. Because you have two separate code bases you may only have this information on desktop site.

Again, in order to maintain the information on search results, it’s important to be indexed the mobile site version. Google has previously said that content that’s not deemed mobile-friendly will not rank as well. It boosts the content for mobile listings using a special mobile ranking system.

Quick steps to make your content mobile-friendly:

• Use a structured format to display content
• Make use of expandable content for mobile version
• Add relevant information to specific content of each page

For instance, structured data of any website is more favorable to have a quick read by a mobile user rather than a website with poor alignment. This how it becomes mobile friendly and gets indexed by Google.

• A Responsive Website Design is Must

Image source: Pixabay

Many websites have different personas that vary across device types. Considering the Google’s new update of Mobile-First Index, mobile URL needs to point towards the responsive pages. It is possible when switching from m-dot to mobile responsive.

Here are some of the tips to make your site responsive:

• You need to remove your rel=”alternate” tags
• Also, remove mobile alternate references in your sitemap
• Implement the 301 redirects to move the content from old URL to redirected page
• Setup each page’s rel=”canonical” so they are pointing to themselves

For instance, if your site has two different layouts for desktop and mobile respectively then, it can create conflicts over different information provided. Make sure you redirect it to responsive pages with expected consistency.

• Equivalent Content on Mobile and Desktop Version

Image source: Pixabay

Most of the users cut down the content or detail features in the Mobile site version compared to the content available on the web version. This indirectly confuses the user about the relevant information and degrades the user experience.

All of this results in major changes in the Google ranking when the Mobile-First Index goes live. So, assure equivalent content on both of the platforms for a clear idea.

Some tips to organize equivalent content:

• Use expandable content views such as Drop down menu
• Make use of tables, or graphical representation
• Follow a structured layout for an organized data

For instance, when the user prefers online purchase from the Mobile-site version, less of the product information or offers details compared to the desktop might affect your sale.