What is the impact of mobile-first indexing on SEO?

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What is the impact of mobile-first indexing on SEO?

Mobile first indexing is a term that has caused a lot of confusion in the SEO world over the past couple of years. In 2019, Google officially changed to mobile first indexing for new websites, showing a significant change in how websites are ranked on search engine results pages (SERPs). 

Mobile first indexing is Google mainly using a mobile version of a website for crawling, indexing, and ranking. If your website is not mobile optimised, you could be losing out on a large portion of organic traffic, not to mention improved rankings.

There has been a major shift towards mobile devices in the digital industry with more people accessing the internet on tablets and smart phones. This change in user behaviour has encouraged Google and other search engines, to focus on mobile friendly websites to improve user experience. Websites that do not adapt to the mobile trend will fall behind, both in ranking, visibility, and traffic.

What is the impact of mobile-first indexing on SEO?
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What is Mobile First Indexing?

Mobile first indexing is a shift in how search engines index and rank websites. Traditionally, Google's process focused on the desktop version of your website, while the mobile version was secondary. Today, with the growing use of mobile devices, Google has changed their process, focusing on a mobile first approach. This means the algorithms now use the mobile version of your site to determine your ranking in search results. 

If your website is not optimised for mobile, it is probably having a negative impact on your SEO efforts. The shift is aligned with user behaviour, where mobile devices now account for more than fifty percent of all internet traffic throughout the world. With a mobile friendly website, your chances of ranking higher is increased. 

Ranking Changes

With the introduction of mobile first indexing, there have been some changes in how search engines crawl, index, and rank your website, focusing on mobile optimisation. With this change, it's essential to understand what factors will impact your ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Google's mobile first indexing means that your website's mobile version is used for indexing and ranking. If your website is not mobile optimised, you are going to find it difficult to improve your ranking in SERPs, even if your desktop version is optimised perfectly. 

Mobile Content Optimisation

All content should be optimised for mobile, as this is essential to mobile first indexing. This includes a responsive design that can adapt to various screen sizes and orientations, ensuring all images and text are accessible for mobile, along with remaining consistent between your mobile and desktop content, avoiding discrepancies that could hinder your SEO success.

Mobile Best Practices

When it comes to improving your ranking on SERPs, you need to focus on certain elements of your mobile website, ensuring your pages load quickly, it's usable and user friendly, improving user experience (UX). You can compress images, use accelerated mobile pages, and avoid the risk of pop ups to improve UX. A better UX leads to higher engagement levels, which in turn, can help to improve your ranking. 

Conclusion

The change to mobile first indexing is part of SEOs evolution, showing the dominance of mobile devices when accessing the internet. As a business, you need to adapt to your audience, which is why mobile optimisation has become so important to achieve online success.

Optimising for mobile first indexing is more than meeting the requirements of Google's algorithm, it's about ensuring your users have an excellent user experience, while keeping your website competitive. Do you need assistance in preparing your website for mobile first indexing? Give the Genie Crawl team a call today and let us help you with your mobile website design and optimisation.

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