It is hard to imagine an Internet user who doesn’t access websites with the help of a smartphone or a tablet. Users surf the web through their mobile devices when they are at home or on the road, therefore, comprehensible mobile version of your resource is a must. Read this article and make sure that you are aware of Google’s search engine settings to mobile first index and how to prepare your resource for it.
What is it?
As we have already mentioned, people prefer using their mobile devices to get an access to the Internet no matter where they are and this is why Google pays that much attention to this fact. To improve the SEO of your site, you should take care of its mobile-friendliness. The index policy is changing because mobile traffic continues to grow. There is more: websites are now ranked and indexed with the main focus on the mobile versions. It means that if your mobile version is weak, your desktop version will fail, too. No matter how efficient your desktop SEO strategies are.
Why is it so crucial?
Website owners want to increase the efficiency of their business. Today, it is just impossible without making your site mobile-friendly. Google cares about user experience and tracks their behavior to analyze whether your site provides a really convenient design and navigation. Due to the last observations Google has made, users are more likely to surf the Internet and make online orders with the help of their mobile devices than laptops and computers. Obviously, if you create a mobile version of your site, Google will rank it better and your traffic will increase.
Some time ago, mobile and desktop versions required two separate websites, but now you can create one and make it applicable for any kind of electronic device. Google continues to move in the direction of the convenient and simple Internet, therefore, you have to take its innovations and ideas into account.
Mobile version of the site and its connection to the WordPress
As you already know, Google will check whether the mobile version of the website is convenient enough before ranking it. The decision will be made by an advanced algorithm and it will judge your resource by mobile-usability first. In fact, this is not something that will happen today, therefore, you have time to adapt your WordPress site to this event. Indexing your WordPress site means:
- The search engine will take mobile-friendliness very seriously and consider it as one of the primary factors when ranking your sit
- The convenience and usability of the mobile version will have an impact on your resource’s popularity and success
- The content from cache and snippets will be taken from the mobile versions of the pages
As you can see, making a mobile version of your website usable is more important than it ever was. Currently, Google informs website owners that they should get prepared for the priority of the mobile versions of their resources. So let’s move to some practical advice that will help you cope with the new rules.
Tips to follow
- High-quality content
Not only your content should be unique and well-written. Also, you should take care to make the content on your desktop and mobile version absolutely identical. The Google crawler will analyze and compare both versions and your site won’t get high in the search list if there are differences between mobile and desktop texts.
- User-friendly design
As you already know, the user experience is everything for Google. Responsive and clear design influences user experience significantly and Google will check your resource for usability. If you already have a good design for your initial desktop version, then you don’t have to worry about this point. Make sure that you have two design versions for a single site, not two separate sites with different design versions. This is not a very good strategy these days.
- Meta-tags
Meta-tags inform Google about the content you locate on your website. Make sure that you add the same metadata to both versions of the website: mobile and desktop.
- Interlinks
The interlinking should also stay the same. The tag rel=canonical should be used for the link leading to the desktop page from the mobile version of the page. The tag rel=alternate will send Google to the mobile version on the desktop one.
- Verify both versions
You should verify mobile and desktop versions of your site by Google’s search console. Verifying just one of them won’t work.
- SEO
Both SEO strategies and text on the pages must be great. The mobile version of the resource should be as well optimized as the desktop one.
- Make it really convenient to use
Google will check whether your mobile version is convenient for analyzing the behavior of your users. If they don’t zoom the text and can click every button with ease, your mobile version will be considered as user-friendly and approved by Google.
- Hosting
Make sure that the hosting server (or servers) you use for your website can handle the user inflow.
- Hire an expert developer
If you are using WordPress, make sure that your developer will be well-versed in this type of sites. Entrusting your site to a professional developer is the same as accrediting college paper writing to academicians: doing so, you avoid minor and major mistakes.
So if you are looking for the most efficient way to improve the ranking of your site, start with the user experience. Google focuses on this factor more than on anything else. The rule stays the same for a mobile version of your site. By the way, mobile versions are first to be indexed by Google for the same reason: people prefer mobile devices above home computers. Your WordPress site should be customized and user-friendly to become popular and visible on the first pages of the search results. Try your websites out before you launch them and hire developers and testers to eliminate mistakes and bugs. In the highly-competitive world of Internet marketing, you should be aware of all innovations of Google and know how to follow them to keep your business on track. Make sure to use these simple recommendations and your chances to occupy the first page in the list will increase.
Chris Kinney
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