Search Engine Optimisation is one of the most important things to associate with digital marketing. This is the process that can help one to arrange their website and content in a way that can help people access it easily online. A major factor that is crucial to Search Engine Optimisation is SERP.
The full form of SERP is the Search Engine Results Page. This page contains search results that search engines like Google show in response to a search query. This can, however, involve several processes that are not visible to the normal person. One of these processes is indexing.
This process involves gathering and studying information to display search results. One of the forms of indexing is the one involving mobile phones. Most digital marketers know it as mobile or mobile-first indexing. You need to know its importance if you are new to digital marketing.
What Is Mobile-First Indexing?
Mobile-first indexing is an analytical method search engines use to study information about search results. However, it differs from normal indexing. This is because it involves the studying of mobile-friendly versions of websites.
You might have a sense of confusion about this matter. However, this is a very simple fact since people use android smartphones alongside computers. As a result, most companies have to build versions of their websites that are also useful for such phones.
This, in turn, has led search engines like Google to adopt methods that can help them display search results on android phones. The best method, in this case, is mobile-first indexing. This can help a search engine to display search results that one can normally see on their computer.
This enables a person to use their mobile internet more comfortably without any trouble. This makes mobile phones some of the best devices for daily work alongside computers. Due to this, such indexing is also useful in digital marketing.
Nowadays, every company wants to build a mobile-friendly website usable on smartphones. This can also allow companies to reach out to their customers through phones. As a result, mobile indexing can also be helpful for promotional purposes.
Why Is Mobile-First Indexing Important In Search Engine Optimisation?
As a digital marketer, you should know the importance of mobile-first indexing in SEO operations. However, you should also know about the three processes that comprise Search Engine Optimisation.
These processes are crawling, indexing, and ranking. In digital marketing, a search engine finds and crawls through a website. After this, it studies the information and indexes it. Once this is complete, the search engine ranks it among similar websites and content.
This is where mobile indexing becomes important. This is mainly because nowadays people use mobile internet alongside internet connections in their computer. Most people, especially teenagers, use computers only for work while using mobiles for the rest of the day.
This makes it important for every company to make their websites capable enough to appear on mobile phones. This mainly aims to promote their content and products to the common people through smartphones.
This is where mobile-first indexing becomes important. This is mainly because search engines like Google function almost the same way, even on mobile phones. Such software uses the same three processes mentioned above for producing search results.
However, mobile-first indexing allows mobile internet to produce the same search results that one can expect from their computer. This can enable any company to promote its products through a person’s mobile phone.
As a result, one can say that mobile-first indexing allows smartphone internet to work properly in the first place. Digital marketers can also use indexing to promote their content about certain products through the mobile internet.
Things To Remember For Making A Website Appear On Mobile Screens
Several factors can affect this process if you or your company owns a website they want to launch on mobile phones. Therefore, it would be wise enough for such companies and digital marketers to know about such factors. This can help one to make a website suitable for mobile-first indexing operations by search engines.
These facts regarding mobile-friendly website upgradation are as follows:-
- Checking Mobile Indexing Feature
A person can modify a website to make it suitable for mobile-first indexing. Once the modifications are complete, a person can check them by observing the new changes in its settings. A popup message can inform the website owner that their site is now fit for mobile-first indexing.
It might also allow the site owner to choose mobile-first indexing as a feature. Once a person chooses this feature, it becomes a permanent part of their website.
- Irreversible Nature Of Changes
As mentioned above, the mobile-first indexing settings will become a permanent website feature. There is no way by which a person can make this change null and void later on. However, this does not mean the website will not appear on a desktop.
It will still appear on a person’s computer like always. However, all search engines will first analyse your website to see if it can appear on mobile phones. This will help the website to appear on mobile internet searches alongside computers.
- Usage Of Only One Index Method
All search engines, including Google, use only the mobile-first indexing method. This is because this indexing method is much faster and produces reliable results. This mainly happens because of the use of several artificial intelligence systems for indexing purposes.
These systems will analyse your website carefully and rank it among similar websites. Therefore, you might need to make your website’s content and infrastructure unique and efficient. This will help you reach higher rankings easily within a short time.
- Adaptability Of A Website
With the rise of mobile internet usage and smartphone system upgrades, older companies might find it hard to make their sites mobile-friendly. This can often stand in the way of a company’s digital marketing objectives. Therefore, a company should ensure that its website’s upgrades are mobile-friendly.
This is important since such upgrades can help search engines perform mobile-first indexing operations on a website. This will result in the website successfully being operational on a person’s mobile phone. This can help a company reach out to their customers through mobile internet and expand their business successfully.
- Similar Experience On Phones And Computers
While upgrading a website for mobile-first indexing, one should not make too many drastic changes. The website should look the same as one can see on a computer. This will prevent confusion in whoever sees the website on their phones.
Ensuring the website remains the same on mobile can also improve its rankings. This is because mobile-first indexing might compare your website’s mobile version with the original one. The mobile version might have a similar ranking if the original one ranks among the best sites. Google Analytics might also check your company’s popularity for this purpose.
A similar mobile version of your website can attract many viewers already familiar with the desktop version. Increasing the number of views can enable mobile-first indexing and Google Analytics to enhance your website rankings.
- Learning About the Differences Between Mobile-First Indexing And Usability
Sometimes a website might not appear on a person’s mobile phone. It might also happen that the website is not useful on a mobile phone despite appearing. However, in this case, one should not think their website is unsuitable for mobile-first indexing.
In fact, in the current times, search engines like Google have made it possible for every website to be fit for mobile-first indexing. However, this does not always mean that one can use the website on a mobile phone as they do on their desktop.
How To Make A Website Fit For Mobile First Indexing
You or your company can make a website fit for mobile-first indexing in several ways. A website owner will need one or more web designers for this purpose. You might also need to create a separate version of your website that is compatible with mobile phones.
However, there are certain simple facts about this that anyone can understand. You do not need to be a web designer to understand these facts.
The simple ways to make a website fit for mobile-first indexing are as follows:-
- Making Mobile First Indexing As The Default Option
If you own an older website, you should consider making mobile-first indexing the default option. This is mainly because Google and other search engines now use mobile-first indexing only to show search results.
Google has now made it possible to make mobile-first indexing the default option for all websites. Therefore, you should also modify your website for the same reason. This will make it possible for your website to get a rank from Google analytics. You will also be able to ensure that your website will appear on mobile search results.
- Having Similar Features On A Website’s Mobile Version
As a website owner, you should make sure that the contents in the mobile and desktop versions are the same. In both cases, you should also ensure the data structure and meta robot tags are identical.
This is because mobile-first indexing will involve analysis of all the content on a website. The presence of less content in the mobile version of a website can lead to lower rankings. This can also lead to your website appearing less in search results. Therefore, you should ensure that your website’s mobile version is the same as the original one.
- Enhancing Website Page Speed
Mobile-first indexing does not only analyse a website’s content. It can also analyse other features, such as a website’s speed. However, a low speed can lead to a lower ranking per the indexing judgement.
Therefore, you should make your website have good speed. A similar speed should also be present in your website’s desktop and mobile versions. This will help you achieve a good ranking per the mobile-first indexing. You will also be sure that your website will appear more frequently on mobile internet searches.
- Learning Ways To Operate Mobile And Desktop Versions At The Same Time
It would help to learn how to operate your website’s mobile and desktop versions. You should know how to make canonical and alternating elements in your website’s versions. It would help if you made sure that certain features are not preventing search engines from performing crawling operations.
You must also add features that will help a search engine identify both versions of your website. This will also help mobile-first indexing give the correct rankings the sites deserve. You might also prevent a ban due to false charges of plagiarism.
Additional Recommendations For Preparing A Website For Mobile First Indexing
There are some more recommendations that you must follow to benefit from mobile-first indexing. These recommendations are as follows:-
- Error page status should be the same on mobile and desktop versions of your website.
- Fragment URL links should not be present in the mobile versions of a site.
- All desktop pages should have corresponding mobile pages with the same content and design.
- You should verify both versions through sites like Search Console, for example.
- You have to design the mobile versions of a website to be fit enough to handle crawling rates.
One Final Note
Making a website fit enough to benefit from mobile-first indexing might not always be easy. This can be even tougher if you are a company owner with a website but know nothing about web design and SEO. Therefore, it will be helpful if you take help from skilled and reliable web designers in this case.
Employing a web designer and digital marketer who is reliable and knows about mobile-first indexing can help you achieve your digital marketing goals. You can also make efficient mobile versions of your web pages to achieve good online rankings.
However, you must also ensure the website’s design does not copy another. This is mainly because mobile-first indexing can analyse almost every website feature. A sign of plagiarism can lead to a drop in rankings. Therefore, you should make your website as valid and unique as possible with help from the best designers.
Author Bio:
Prashant Pujara serves as the CEO of MultiQoS Technologies, a well-known UI/UX Design Company. He possesses 10+ years of experience in software development, with a focus on making mobile applications for all main platforms, including iOS & Android.
