Google recently announced that all sites will be enabled for mobile-first indexing by September 2020. If your site has not yet been enabled, now’s the time to ensure your site is ready for mobile-first when it happens.
If your site has already been enabled (and it’s highly likely it has, some 70% of sites have already been enabled since they started it in 2016), it’s still a good idea to review your site to maintain your rankings. Take note: Just because a site is mobile-friendly for a user, doesn’t mean it’s mobile optimized for Google.
Following are the key ways to optimize your site for mobile-first indexing:
1. Use Equivalent Content on Desktop and Mobile Versions
Once enabled, nearly all indexing of your site will come from the mobile site. That means you need to have the same amount of content on the mobile version as you have on the desktop version. For many, this is not currently the case. Beef up that mobile content to ensure it’s equivalent to what is on desktop, and utilize the same clear and meaningful headlines on your mobile site as well.
2. Add Optimized Meta Data & Image Data
Ensure that both the meta pagetitle and meta description appearing on the desktop version of your website are similar to what you have on your mobile version. Same goes for all image information--the file names, captions, descriptive titles, and alt text should be the same across both versions.
3. Prioritize Site Speed
The fact that mobile devices lack the processing power of larger computers implies that prioritizing site speed is something you cannot afford to ignore. If your website loads faster on mobile devices, users will spend more time there, and they will most probably check in again. Use Google’s Page Speed Testing Tool to learn what areas are slowing down your mobile site, and work with developers to fix any issues.
4. Leverage Structured Data
Structured data helps the search engines better understand what your site and content is about, which can result in more relevant indexing and rich snippets on the search engine results pages. First, ensure that structured data is being used on both mobile and desktop versions of the site. Next, check that structured data URLs for the mobile version are using mobile URLs. And lastly, if you’re using Data Highlighter to provide structured data (that is, rather than adding the code directly or using a plugin), be sure to check the Data Highlighter Dashboard regularly for errors.
5. Don’t Be Afraid to Use Accordions and Drop-Downs
For a while there, people didn’t want to use accordion or drop down menus for fear Google would penalize them for hiding content. That’s just not the case anymore (and perhaps never really was). Google understands there’s limited real estate on mobile screens, and we have to use these features to provide users with the info they need in the cleanest and clearest way possible. Not only will you NOT get penalized, Google actually crawls all content within accordions/drop downs. So you’re not missing out on any of the keyword or content benefits.
6. Verify Both Versions in Search Console
Add and verify both versions of your site--desktop and mobile--in Google Search Console (GSC). Submit the appropriate XML sitemap in each GSC property to ensure Google has a roadmap of each page on the sites, and thus is able to find and index them more easily.
7. Use the same Robots.txt File For Both
The robots.txt file lets you specify which parts of a website may be crawled or not. In most cases, you should use the same robots.txt directives for both mobile and desktop versions of your site. After creating, verify that the directives are operating as you intended, and make changes as necessary.
Google is sending out notices to site owners via Search Console, warning them of issues that could prevent enabling.
If you receive one of these notes, certainly take action to fix the issue as soon as possible. If you have a responsive site (and you really should), you’re ahead of the game and shouldn’t have to make as many changes to optimize for mobile first. For those with a separate mobile site or simply anyone wishing to improve their mobile optimization, please don’t hesitate to contact us with questions.