If you want to get the best possible results from your online presence, then you need to ensure that it’s optimized for search engine rankings. This means that you need to pay attention to all of the latest news from Google. Amongst the news that you may be reading at present is the upcoming mobile first indexing which is finally set to arrive this year.
Mobile first indexing was first mentioned by Google a couple of years back but now it’s about to become more of a reality. We are going to take a look at what mobile first indexing actually is. We are also going to provide you with a useful checklist of actions to take to make sure that your business is fully prepared for when mobile first indexing arrives.
What is mobile first indexing?
It may not come as big surprise to learn that more people now access the Internet using a mobile device than using a desktop. This means that it makes sense to make sure that the user experience is optimized for mobile. Taking this into account, Google is introducing the mobile first index. Once the index is introduced the mobile website of a business will be analyzed first in order to determine Google rankings.
You can see why it’s so important to make sure your web presence is ready for this change. If you do not do this there is a good chance that your search rankings will be adversely affected.
Checklist to make sure you are prepared for the changes
If you have already been working on optimizing your site for mobile use, then you should not have that much work to do. This should also apply if you have a website that makes use of responsive web design. However, there may still be things that you need to check. Here is a checklist of some of the major considerations you should pay attention to.
- Make sure the configuration of your mobile site matches that of your desktop site.
- Carry out structured data testing on the URLs of both your mobile site and desktop site.
- Make sure that your mobile site is accessible to Googlebot.
- According to Google you should not have to change canonical links as these will be used in the same way as before.
- Ensure that your mobile site is verified in search console.
- Do not rush the development of a mobile site. There is no need to panic and release a mobile site for your business before it’s ready as Google will still index desktop sites.
These are some of the most important aspects you need to pay attention to if you want to make sure your mobile website is ready for when mobile first indexing starts. If you need any help, then you can seek advice from web design professionals such as Quikclicks. Hopefully, you should not have too much work to carry out if you have already optimized your website for access from a mobile device.
