Google is concentrating on Mobile-First Indexing, and change is here.

Google will calculate what it places in their index based on the mobile version of your website. In contrast, they used to index the desktop website version first.

This change has come about due to the elevated number of searches coming from mobile devices. Google has stated that to give users a better experience, they've decided to prioritize mobile results.

Bottom line - what this means is, website owners need to ensure their websites are mobile friendly. If you already have a responsive design for your site, then you shouldn’t be affected.

If you have different websites for desktop and for mobile, and your mobile site has far less content, then you will most likely be affected.

What Should You Do?

First off, perform a Mobile Friendly Site Test by visiting the Google page, https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly.

Enter your site URL to test whether or not your website is considered mobile friendly, in the eyes of Google.

If your website doesn't pass the test, then your mobile friendliness is not up to snuff.

Once you enter your URL and click ‘Run Test’ - you’ll be taken to a webpage that tells you whether or not your site is mobile-friendly. If it’s not, Google will display what’s wrong and suggestions for how to fix.

Writing for mobile friendly results include short sentences with an absence of long, drawn out paragraphs. Fonts used should be clear and large, leaving enough whitespace to allow for easy reading.

Review your Google Analytics to analyze if your site visitors are primarily coming from a mobile source. Also determine if they’re arriving on your site from mobile search results as opposed to arriving organically. If the major percentage of your search traffic is from mobile search result pages, then you should optimize mobile Snippets.

Currently Have a Mobile Friendly Website?

Optimize if You Have a Mobile Friendly Website:

• Page should load within 3 seconds, test here: https://gtmetrix.com/
• Images should load quickly.
• Buttons should be large enough to easily click on.
• There are no controls for hover elements in mobile, remove if applicable.
• Flash is incompatible on some mobile devises, so better to use Java or HTML5.
• No more than one pop-up should be used.
• Ensure Phone numbers on site are Tappable.
• Check server response times.
• Be sure browser caching is on.
• Enable compression.

Additional Mobile-First information from the Developers at Google:
https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/mobile-first-indexing

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