Gain insight into Mobile-First Indexing and learn how to optimise your website for mobile users to improve SEO and visibility in search results.
Danni Jessen
In recent years, Google has gradually moved towards what they call mobile-first indexing. This means they crawl your site as if accessed from a mobile device and evaluate it accordingly. In other words, it is more important than ever to ensure your website is fully optimised to perform across all device types – otherwise, you will see the impact in your Google performance.
In this blog post, I will cover the following:
As you have probably heard many times before, more than half of all internet traffic now comes from mobile devices. In fact, 51.33% of all global internet traffic is from mobile devices, and this number is only set to rise. If that is not enough to convince you that your website needs to be mobile-friendly, Google has also announced that they will consistently start crawling websites as viewed on mobile devices. Therefore, you must ensure your site has the same functionality whether accessed via computer or mobile phone.
Google recommends using a responsive design – this means your content and design should be as consistent as possible across all devices. They also advise against solutions such as m.dot domains.
An m.dot domain is where the mobile version of a website is accessed via a subdomain, rather than from the same domain as on a computer. For example, it could look like this:
Example of a standard domain
Example of an m.dot domain
The best and easiest way to set up mobile-friendliness – for you, your users and Google – is, again, to use a responsive design on a single domain. This ensures that titles, meta descriptions, text and other content remain the same across all devices, so you only have to change it in one place. With this approach, the content Google sees is exactly the content your users see, giving you the best chance of being ranked correctly.
I could go on all day listing everything you need to be aware of. So, I have selected 4 key areas I believe are the most important.
Speed is, as always, an important parameter, and with these changes, it becomes even more crucial for ranking well on Google. The main difference between speed optimisation for mobile versus desktop is that mobile connections are typically slower. In reality, you should not do anything too differently from before, but you must be even more meticulous.
Some specific actions to improve your site’s speed on mobile devices include:
LazyLoad is one of many recent measures that is now, without question, a necessity if you are even slightly ambitious about your online business. LazyLoad ensures that images on your website are only loaded when they appear on the user’s screen. Imagine you have a category page with 22 product images, all being loaded whether the user scrolls down to them or not. This drains the user’s mobile data and can negatively impact your rankings.
Compressing HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images can significantly decrease your website’s loading times. By compressing these files, users do not need to download large files when accessing your site, resulting in a faster experience. This is especially important on mobile devices, as either the device, the connection, or both, are typically slower than on computers.
Example of a good speed score with LazyLoad and compression
Technical/on-page SEO should now be based on your mobile version. I often see people leaving out certain sections on the mobile version, believing they are not relevant and so harming usability. That makes sense, but going forward, this should be considered at the design stage. For example, you should not remove the text above your product overview, but move it below instead. Another example is when breadcrumb navigation is omitted on mobile. This has a huge impact on your internal link structure, so it should always be included.
Example of correct use of breadcrumb navigation on mobile
If your website uses lots of pop-ups to collect newsletter subscribers, promote campaigns or for other reasons, you should be very careful. There is still no definitive answer as to how pop-ups affect your ranking, but one thing is certain: they do not make it easier for Google to crawl your content. We recommend using no more than one pop-up per page. This is not to say you cannot use them for various messages, but limit yourself to one at a time.
It is also important that your pop-up does not disturb the user. For example, if it covers the entire screen and prevents users from seeing the content, this can have a negative impact on SEO, as usability is reduced. This will become even more relevant when Google releases its new major algorithm update in 2021 called the Page Experience Update.
There are some recurring mistakes I typically see when reviewing a client’s site. These include confusing menus on mobile devices or menus that differ across device types.
Firstly, it is important that users can easily navigate the menu and that it is not overloaded with irrelevant menu items. A classic solution to this is the so-called burger menu. A burger menu helps to give a clear overview of your core products/services, while allowing users to easily explore subcategories in an organised manner.
Secondly, it is vital that the menu contains exactly the same content across all devices – in other words, there should only be one menu. This is directly related to having a responsive design and ensures that users can navigate your website regardless of which device they are using.
Example of a correct burger menu setup
This was a brief overview of what mobile-first indexing is about, as well as some key points to look out for. Remember, this is just a small fraction of what you should be aware of. If you have any questions about mobile-first indexing or would like our input on whether you are ready for the update in March 2021, you are always welcome to contact us on 70 44 42 89 or email us at hej@wemarket-digital.com
Why responsive design is more important than ever before
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