How Not To Get Screwed By Google’s Mobile-First Index
Mobile usage has drastically increased over the past few years, with more and more users accessing websites through their devices. This led to Mobile SEO becoming much more important than before. Recently, Google has increased their focus on mobile search, with the Google Speed update adding mobile page loading speed as a ranking factor.
With Google going into a more mobile-first approach, mobile optimization has now become a priority for a lot of websites in order to attain or retain their search rankings. With so many people accessing the internet using their mobile devices, not doing this will lead to poor results, which can definitely screw up your SEO strategy. With that in mind, here are some of the best mobile optimization strategies that will answer your questions.
Should we implement AMP?
Google has been pushing forward to having AMP implemented in numerous websites across the internet, as it allows for a better user experience. In fact, AMP has been integrated into some of Google’s services and tools, which allows for a better performance. AMP integration might sound complicated at a glance, but thanks to tools like the one we have on WordPress, the process can be done much easier and allows us to craft websites that have better performance.
In one of our previous articles, we have shared the effects of AMP to SEO, along with a simple guide on how to implement it on a WordPress powered website. Adding AMP gives your website more viewable on mobile, and improves the loading speed by a considerable margin, which is a big plus for your search ranking performance.
Should you go for Responsive Design?
Along with AMP, Responsive Design allows your website to be easier to view on various devices, especially for mobile. This means that your website adjusts to the size of the screen, ensuring that you would no longer have to do the tedious process of zooming in and out, which really puts a dent in the user experience. This makes your website look more streamlined and cleaner when viewed on any device, which is a definite plus when you want people to stay on your website.
Should you create a mobile version of your website?
Based on our experience, implementing AMP and Responsive Design allows our websites to be viewable on any device, and this means that creating a mobile version of a website would be redundant. While mobile versions of websites are still common around the internet, this tends to restrict content, which means that users might be put off that they are not able to access the full website.
What are the best tools to track Mobile Optimization?
When it comes to conducting website audits and reviews, we use a variety of tools to allow us to be able to view different kinds of data that enable us to determine how well it is performing. Examples of these tools include Google Lighthouse and Woorank, which are website audit tools that allow us to assess website loading speed, meta tags, and mobile friendliness.
For Woorank, you would be able to get a preview of how the website would look on smartphones and tablets, which helps you see if your AMP and Responsive Design is working. Another handy Woorank feature is the mobile assessment section, which provides you with the best suggestions to further optimize your website. Woorank would point out features such as font size and touchscreen readiness, all of which are important for mobile optimization. Loading speed and time is also taken into account, which shows if your website loads fast enough for positive SEO standards.
Is Social Media Marketing as important as SEO?
The rise in mobile usage can be traced to the rise in popularity of social media sites. The ability to contact people and share content on the go on your mobile device helped establish the mobile market as one of the most successful and profitable technological industries. With social media an important factor, this meant that some of the biggest brands had to take advantage and create marketing campaigns on mobile.
Social media marketing allows users to be able to find your business and website through their mobile devices and is also the best platform to create viral marketing campaigns. However, while social media marketing is important, SEO should still be your top priority. Having a viral campaign might lead people to your site but leading them into a badly optimized one would waste that investment.
Key Takeaway
Mobile optimization has now become a very important element in SEO strategy. While this is still a relatively new and evolving field in search, the rapid development in mobile technology ensures that more changes will be in store in the near future. By answering some of these important optimization questions, you are guaranteed that your SEO would not be negatively affected by Google’s mobile-first approach.
If you have more questions about mobile optimization and SEO in general, leave a comment below and let’s talk.
