Mobile-First Indexing: A Guide to Ensuring Mobile-Friendly Websites

Intro

Mobile-first indexing isn't a new topic in the world of search engine optimization (SEO) and website development. In fact, Exploding Topics reports that more than 55% of worldwide ‌traffic comes from mobile devices.

If your business doesn’t have a mobile-friendly website, potential customers are probably going to bounce from your site in seconds.

The best way for your website to show up on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) is by embracing mobile-first indexing.

This is Google’s method for ranking websites based on the mobile versions of their site content.

To help you steer you on the right path, this guide will explain how to incorporate mobile-first indexing by creating a responsive website design.

Check if your website is mobile-friendly

In mobile-first indexing, search engines will crawl and display the mobile version of your website above anything else. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, its desktop version will appear on mobile displays by default.

And your mobile users could end up with an oversized and difficult-to-use website presentation on their smartphone or tablet. Not an ideal situation, to say the least. You’re missing out on a responsive design. And your website isn’t adapting to different screen sizes.

You can avoid this scenario by checking to see if your website is already mobile-friendly. The best way is by using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.

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By just plugging your website URL into the search bar, you can view real-time data about how it performs on mobile devices:

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As you can see, it’s crucial to maintain a mobile-friendly website score between 90–100. If you discover that your website isn’t mobile-friendly, then it’s time to head to Google Search Console.

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There, you can find any crawling issues, site speed problems, and other errors that could be holding your mobile experience back.

However, the most common mobile-friendly issues you’ll find in it when articles, Google Search Console are:

• Issues with touch input (links and buttons) for mobile users
• Unresponsive website design, template, or theme
• Non-mobile-friendly popups
• Wonky website navigation
• Difficult-to-read fonts

Whether your website is built from scratch or if you’re using a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, you shouldn’t assume your site is already mobile-friendly.

PageSpeed Insights and Google Search Console will give you a rundown of your website’s mobile performance so you can make any necessary improvements for mobile screens.

Make sure your website provides the same experience across desktop and mobile devices

It’s common for SEOs and developers to cut some web features from a mobile website to promote a good user experience (UX).

After all, having a clunky mobile website full of useless elements is never a good idea. However, eliminating too many of these features can impact your website’s mobile-first indexing.

Google wants to make sure developers are delivering the same experience to both desktop and mobile users. Here's what they specifically had to say on the matter:

“If your mobile site has less content than your desktop site, consider updating your mobile site so that its primary content is equivalent to your desktop site. Almost all indexing on your site comes from the mobile site.”

It’s pretty simple.

If your mobile website version has less content, it’s not going to perform well on the SERPs.

Search engines value content because it’s the only way they can determine what your website is about. To keep your website’s desktop and mobile versions the same, here are some key recommendations to follow:

• Work with your UX, SEO, and development teams to display content in a mobile-friendly way instead of removing crucial website elements.
• Images, videos, and other large content files must be optimized correctly based on different mobile devices, such as tablets, smartphones, and other smart devices.
• Keep all structured data, meta robot tags, and technical website data universal across all IoT devices.

Remember, mobile-first indexing means that search engines will primarily crawl your website’s mobile version. If your mobile website is starving for content, it doesn’t matter how optimized your desktop website is.

Neither will generate the SEO performance you’re looking for.

Learn the difference between mobile usability and mobile-first indexing

Mobile-first indexing and mobile usability are often used interchangeably. The truth is that these terms aren’t the same.

Mobile usability explains a website’s performance on mobile devices. As we explained before, mobile-first indexing is Google’s preference for crawling mobile website versions over desktop‌ versions.

Here's the caveat.

If your website isn’t mobile-friendly and has tons of mobile usability issues, it can and will still be indexed by Google. For example, let’s say you’re running a restaurant, and one of your menu pages is a PDF file.

Of course, PDF files are difficult to read and navigate on mobile devices. However, Google can still crawl ‌information with mobile-first indexing if there is enough of it.

Ultimately, a smartphone Googlebot will automatically crawl your website if it has enough content for mobile-first indexing. Still, you’ll need to solve your website’s mobile usability issues first.

Accelerate your website’s speed

The average time a user will spend on any website is 54 seconds.

No one has all day to wait for your website to load. After all, there are billions of other websites they can access in just a couple of seconds.

Therefore, improving your website’s speed is essential, not only for mobile users but also for SEO purposes.

Slow website loading times affect both its dwell time and bounce rate. These are metrics that estimate how long people are staying on your website or leaving without doing anything.

If this happens because of your website’s slow speed, Google will notice and demote your website in the SERPs. To avoid this, you can check and monitor your website’s speed by conducting a site audit.

You can use Ranktracker to perform a comprehensive web audit to gauge your site’s speed across mobile devices.

Optimize your website for lazy loading content

Lazy loading content is commonplace on most modern websites. News publications use this type of content to continuously populate more stories as you scroll down their sites.

The sports news publisher, ClutchPoints, lets users click the “More Stories” button if they want to read more news articles in particular sports categories:

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The principle behind lazy loading content is to only display content when the user calls for it. And it increases website speed by reducing unnecessary lines of code for Google to crawl.

Also, it adds a nice touch of UX to keep your website pages less content-heavy for mobile users. However, the problem is that lazy loading content can be challenging for search engines to index.

Back to ClutchPoints, for example.

Naturally, Google won’t be able to index the stories you can pull up by clicking the “More Stories” button if they aren’t already there.

You can fix this issue by making sure your website allows for paginated loading. This allows search engines like Google to make note of all your site content, even if it’s using infinite scroll, like ClutchPoints.

Watch out for improper ad placement

If you’re using Google Adsense, it’s important to be careful about how your ads show up on your website’s mobile version.

Mobile devices show responsive display ads (RDAs) instead of the more common ads you’ll see on a desktop computer.

For example, here are typical desktop ads:

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And, here's what they'd look like on a mobile device:

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You can’t get away with repurposing desktop display ads on mobile. Here are some best practices to follow when creating mobile RDAs:

• Instruct your SEO team and developers to use CSS and HTML tags to adjust your ads based on different presentation sizes
• Keep your headline and text clear and brief
• Try to avoid adding text over images
• Create ad images of multiple sizes

Make sure your website is ADA compliant

61 million people in the United States live with a disability. Having an accessible website means accommodating users with disabilities who may be hard of hearing, colorblind, or dealing with another invisible disability.

The more people who can interact with your website, the more likely they'll stay and convert. This concept is huge for mobile-first indexing.

Making your website accessible benefits all users, not just those with disabilities. Better customer experiences are provided by mobile-friendly websites that are simple to use, have a clear content structure, and give alternative text for images, among other accessibility features.

The pursuit of website accessibility is also a wise commercial decision in addition to being an ethical one. It is essential to recognize the legal implications of ensuring accessibility. For instance, regulations like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) impact US companies and mandate that their websites, mirroring their physical premises provide a comprehensive experience for all visitors.

You can use a free website accessibility checker, such as accessiBe, which accurately assesses your website's current accessibility status to determine if it complies with current regulations.

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Other ways you can make your website more accessible is by:

• Using consistent colors on your website. Make sure to avoid using very bright, neon colors that are difficult to read.
• Adding alternative text to your images to accommodate people with disabilities using screen readers.
• Employing a clear content structure so users can find important information quickly and easily.

Once you’ve employed some of these best practices, check your website’s compliance, according to The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If your page receives a passing score, you’re good to go.

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Developing an accessible website guarantees that all people are engaged, informed, and ready to convert.

Key takeaways

Overall, mobile-first indexing has set a higher standard for how websites should look and perform on the internet. Search engines are now primarily interested in how your website serves mobile users.

Following this guide should paint a clearer picture of how to manage a mobile-friendly website and accommodate more mobile users.