Today, the Whales are going to share with you some general and up-to-date information about mobile-first indexing. First, created in late 2016, it was updated several times. From July 2019, all new pages started to be tested on mobile-first indexing. From September 2020, Google is going to check all the pages for mobile-first indexing.
What is Mobile-First Indexing and How Does it Work?
Mobile-first indexing is a process of checking your mobile version of a page in order to rank it. It is important to mention here that mobile-friendliness is not the same thing as mobile-first indexing. Mobile-friendliness means that your page performs well on all devices. You can do a mobile-friendliness test anytime, and Google Search Console will show you the score and give you some recommendations for some improvement.
At the same time, for Google, mobile indexing is a process that is made by a search engine itself. Google crawls your page and gives your mobile page some ranking. If your page does not have a mobile version, then your ranking will be based only on a desktop version. If your page has both a mobile and a desktop version, then the mobile version will be of greater importance.
How Can You Rank Higher in Mobile-First Indexing?
Even though the way Google gives rankings to mobile pages is a secret, today the Whales are going to give you some basic tips about ranking higher in mobile-first indexing.
• Your mobile and desktop versions should have the same content
• Both versions of your page should have all the necessary structured data
• All of the pages should have good meta descriptions
• Both versions of your page should be verified in Google Search Console
• Both versions of your page should have some link elements such as rel=canonical and rel=alternative
• Your robot.txt directories should be the same for both desktop and mobile versions
Some Other Important Things
All the things mentioned before may be excellent for your websites. However, you still do not rank high on Google. What could be the potential issues?
Yes, Google is a machine. However, you are writing for people and getting a higher ranking from a Search Engine is just one of the ways to get more organic traffic to your business. What is the end goal of your pursuit of Google rankings? Probably, higher revenues, higher CTR and impressions? How can you get those?
Content is king. However, you are writing for humans and in order to understand them better, you should put yourself into the shoes of a potential customer of your company. Why is your company better than its competitors? How can you draw attention to your potential customers? Try to make use of your landing page. Pay attention to conversion rates, create some Calls to Action and special fill out forms. Ask your friends who are out of the industry for a piece of advice or just for an opinion. It may be helpful. ;-)
References
- Daniel Escardo(2018): What Is Mobile-First Indexing & Why Does It Matter?
- Frederic Lardinois (2020): Google Search will make mobile-first indexing the default by September
- Lee Wilson (2019): Google's mobile first indexing: what you need to know in 2020