It’s more important than ever to ensure your website is fully mobile responsive. Since the majority of internet searches are from mobile devices, mobile indexing is becoming more of a primary focus for search engines. In March, Google announced “that after a year and a half of testing it was beginning a wider rollout of its mobile-first indexing and had started migrating sites that follow the best practices for mobile-first indexing. However, the push towards mobile-friendly sites continues with Google noting that mobile-friendly content can perform better, and that slow loading content will be a ranking factor for mobile searches from July.”
Google stated that they will “continue to have one single index that we use for serving search results. We do not have a “mobile-first index” that’s separate from our main index. Historically, the desktop version was indexed, but increasingly, we will be using the mobile versions of content.”
This doesn’t mean Google won’t be paying attention to desktop versions of content and images, because they are and will continue to. It does mean that they “will predominantly use the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking”. Google will be showing mobile versions of website pages in the search results.
What do you need to do?
- Confirm your site is meeting these mobile standards
- Make necessary updates to your website design to ensure it’s fully mobile responsive
- Make sure you are utilizing the right SEO settings on both desktop and mobile versions
- Gear your content strategy and updates towards mobile keyword focuses and searches