Over the last several years, Google has made sure to give the most accurate search results for user queries on mobile devices. They have also prioritized ranks based on website performance on mobile devices. There have also been multiple updates from Google specifically for mobile search queries. Mobilegeddon in 2015, Speed Update 2018, and this spring the Page Experience Update will be coming out. This new update should increase friendliness, stability, and interactivity which are vital ranking systems for mobile searches. Google is also implementing a plan to transition all websites over to mobile-first indexing.
Mobile-first Update Date
In March 2020, Google announced they would officially move all sites on the web over to mobile-first indexing. Due to COVID-19, the project was pushed to a new launch in March 2021, and it seems like Google is close to being finished. Once it is implemented, there isn’t anything you need to do, but you can take extra steps to further optimize your site for the algorithm.
Understanding Mobile-first Indexing
Mobile-first indexing means that moving forward Google will predominantly use the mobile version of your website content for indexing and rankings. Google has always used a desktop version of page content for indexing. However, with the majority of searches now being from mobile devices, it only makes sense to convert the primary indexing to mobile.
If your website was created before July 2019, you will be notified via search console when your site is switched over to mobile version indexing. As of March 2020, Google announced that all websites are being moved to mobile indexing in September. That is until COVID changed Google’s plans. With the new March 2021 launch, as of now, around 70% of websites have been moved over to mobile-first indexing. The last 30% should be done by the end of April. This is a recent statement from Google regarding the remaining 30%:
“We have the deadline...set for March. I think there are some technical details with the last sites that we are working out. So we can switch them over in an optimal way. But at some point, it will just be switched over. If that is still in March or maybe in April or maybe even ends up in May, I don’t know. But we are going to be switching all of these sites and if your site is ready then that will just happen then.”
The good thing is that you do not need to worry about your site being indexed on a mobile-first basis, if it hasn’t already happened then it will soon. The only thing you need to worry about, however, is whether or not your website is optimized for mobile-first indexing.
Optimizing for Mobile-first Indexing
Since companies don’t need to worry about the indexing transfer, Google has provided some tips on how to enhance your mobile-first indexing.
Allow Googlebot Access to Render Your Content
Here are three steps to make sure Googlebot can crawl your website. First, meta tags are still used to crawl both versions of your site. It is the same default setting for websites and, unless your developer changes the configuration of your site, you don’t need to worry about this. Second, ensure that Google can see all lazy loading. Lazy loading is an optimization technique for the online content on your site or web app. To check out your loading speed and any issues you have, we recommend using PageSpeed Insights. Third, make sure you aren’t blocking specific URLs with the disallow directive. To learn more about this check out this section on Google Search Central.
Make Sure Your Content is the Same on Desktop & Mobile
Your Mobile site should have the exact same content as your desktop site. Google has let companies know that if you intentionally have less content on your mobile pages compared to your desktop page, then you will lose traffic when the page is indexed. We suggest further ensuring your headers are the same for mobile and desktop sites.
Leverage Google Recommendations
Google has also made further suggestions to help you with mobile-first optimization. First, follow the Better Ads Standard when displaying ads on mobile devices. Second, ensure images on your mobile site follow image SEO best practices. The top seven things to remember to ensure compliance with SEO best practices are:
Use a compressor to reduce image size
Upload images in next-gen formats
Scale images to work with your website
Have original image content
Leverage titles captions and alt text
Ensure seamless social sharing
Use lazy loading
Third, make sure videos on your mobile site follow video best practices. Finally, if your website has separate URLs for desktop and mobile pages, make sure they are verified in Search Console and that the URLs aren’t fragmented.
Watch For Mobile Errors
Google doesn’t expect you to know everything you need to optimize for. But they do expect you to check up on your site through Search Console for mobile errors and to fix any errors that pop up. The first step to do this is to claim your site in Search Console and submit a sitemap.
By hiring experts in the space you can run an SEO audit on your website. This can help you understand what is holding you back on your website. You will be able to see if you are missing meta tags, structured data, oversized images, and page quality issues for a start. But there are other things you can work on as well.
People are naturally worried about change, but by taking the initial step of reading this article you are already more informed and have less to be concerned about. If you are looking into what needs to be done, and what Google is looking for, just make sure to refer back to this article as a guide to further optimizing your website for Mobile-first Indexing.