Gone are the days when Google only considered the desktop version of your site to rank it. With everything changing so fast, what did you expect? Today, people use their mobile phones to do almost everything, shopping included.
When Google noticed this trend, it introduced mobile first index to stimulate mobile user experience. So, this mobile first index approach will determine the relevancy of your site based on both the desktop and mobile versions. This means mobile optimized sites will rank higher on Google. If you haven’t made your website mobile-friendly, what are you waiting for?
So, how can mobile first index help improve your website rankings?
Use responsive design
A responsive design support is a crucial element on the mobile first index that can have a positive impact on your search engine rankings. You can use a digital agency like Linked to help you with responsive design. A responsive site should create a great user experience across all devices without leaving out information to fit smaller devices. This means your content should look great on all devices. Further, it should be finger-friendly for mobile users.
A responsive design is a good start in getting a higher rank on search engines but, the website design itself should be on point. Make sure you:
Avoid flash on your website. You should refrain from using flash-based content on your website. If Google sees flash content on your mobile pages, your rankings will definitely drop.
Do away with the pop-ups. Don’t overload your site with pop-ups. If there is one thing that annoys mobile users, it’s pop up ads. Google has started mobile pop-up penalty, so beware.
There’s no point of creating a responsive design, but your website design is just bad. Put some work on your website and let it work for you.
Speed up your site
Optimizing your website for a faster mobile user experience is essential for helping your site move towards the top ranks. When optimizing your site:
Resize images: Large image sizes tend to slow down your website. Reduce image sizes to boost your site performance.
Minimize redirects: Too many redirects can drastically slow down page speed.
Keep the videos less and short: Having multiple videos and long form videos can slow mobile users’ experience.
Reduce your website CSS, HTML and JavaScript: Want to make search engines and your site visitors happy? Remove any unnecessary characters not required for the code execution. This will speed up your page.
Optimize your content for mobile users
Whenever you create content on your site, whether it’s articles, blog posts, pictures, videos, think about the mobile user experience. Today, mobile phone is the most popular way to browse the internet. In fact, young adults don’t use computers to browse at all. Hence, it’s almost mandatory to create a mobile-optimized content if you want to improve your rankings.
And by optimizing we mean:
Keep it short, but interesting. If you post long content pieces, your mobile user might not finish reading your article. But if you have to keep it long, use shorter paragraphs to make it easier for them to read.
Images and videos should fit mobile screens. Just make videos and images responsive for a great user experience.
Don’t block CSS, JavaScript and Image Files
Blocking the code and minifying it as mentioned above are two completely different things. Blocking CSS, JavaScript and Image files, makes indexing hard. This means Google bot won’t be able to see your site like an average user. And if Google bot can’t access your site, your rankings will suffer.