With mobile traffic continuing to rise, it’s time to shift our perspectives from desktop first to mobile first. Yet Google was still ranking search results by desktop page content and experience. Which is the majority of the world: If Google didn’t make the change to rank mobile pages, there would likely be a drop in mobile users not searching with Google due to slow sites and unoptimized mobile pages. If your website is not optimized for mobile, you could see a drop in traffic and rankings. After you’ve got a responsive site setup, turn your focus to improving page speed and designing a better user experience for mobile users. Since that was a ton of information, let’s recap: Mobile-first indexing is rolling out Your content on desktop should match mobile Focus on improving your site speed Make sure that mobile pages are fast and simple in design Follow these steps, and you will be prepared to take on the new mobile-first index. With this new update, it’s time to focus on creating more content that is useful to your readers and improving your design. The speed update isn’t the only update coming in July this year. But, it’s clear, that HTTPS does affect ranking. With zero result SERPs and voice search, we can gather that SERPs are changing fast and moving toward instant answers.
Search engine optimization is a competitive, ever-changing landscape that requires marketers to adapt fast.
Google changes its own algorithm up to 600 times every single year.
And according to Google itself, it has confirmed this in tweets, “each day, Google usually releases one or more changes…”
Keeping up with changes is extremely hard. But it’s also necessary if you want your organic traffic to be consistent and continue to improve.
You can’t be doing what worked five years ago today and expect the results to last forever.
With changes coming daily and significant updates in the works, SEO is, has and will keep changing as consumer behavior changes.
Google’s search engine is designed for the people, not for the marketers.
We can’t keyword stuff anymore and expect to rank number one.
Now meaningful experiences for users play a key role in success. Creating content that solves user problems faster and more efficiently.
As of late, Google has pumped out a few major changes to the way we conduct SEO practices in 2018 and beyond.
1. The mobile and page speed era is here
Just five years ago, mobile optimization was an afterthought.
You’d optimize your website with keyword-rich content, schema markup, and metadata.
Then, you’d dynamically update your mobile site to capture that bit of mobile traffic that needed it.
You know, the mobile-friendly crowd.
And, you’d simply repeat the process and watch the traffic flood in, mainly focusing analysis on desktop reports and rarely reviewing your mobile reports.
But times have changed.
In 2016, mobile traffic started to become a more substantial portion of the overall internet usage worldwide in comparison to desktop.
With mobile traffic continuing to rise, it’s time to shift our perspectives from desktop first to mobile first.
And that’s exactly what Google is doing with the mobile-first index.
Zenith Media predicts that mobile traffic will account for 79% of all Internet traffic by the end of 2018.
Initially announcing the mobile-first index in November 2016, Google made it clear that mobile was dominating the search engine.
Today, most people are searching on Google using a mobile device. However, our ranking systems still typically look at the desktop version of a page’s content to evaluate its relevance to the user. This can cause issues when the mobile page has less content than the desktop page because our algorithms are not evaluating the actual page that is seen by a mobile searcher.
Let me summarize this for you in plain English:
Most people are using Google on a mobile device.
Conducting mobile searches is more common than ever. Yet Google was still ranking search results by desktop page content and experience.
The disconnect here is that most are on mobile yet website owners are designing for an audience viewing desktop.
This results in bad experiences for users on unoptimized mobile pages.
And Google is all about providing the best search engine to its user base. Which is the majority of the world:
If Google didn’t make the change to rank mobile pages, there would likely be a drop in mobile users not searching with Google due to slow sites and unoptimized mobile pages.
So, they started testing the mobile-first index in 2016, where Google planned to shift its indexing to mobile pages before desktop, providing better browsing for the majority of users.
As you can imagine, this was a pretty significant shift. And, it left the industry with a lot of unanswered questions.
If your website is not optimized for mobile, you could see a drop in traffic and rankings.
Just recently in March 2018, Google announced that it was “rolling out mobile-first indexing,” giving users messages in their search console to inform them:
So, what implications does this have for you?
It means that you need to have a functioning mobile site with content that matches your desktop site.
This can be achieved with a responsive mobile site that dynamically updates content from desktop to mobile.
Or, if you’re using an m-dot site, you need to update content from your desktop to mobile manually.
If you’re using WordPress, I recommend using a plugin like WPtouch to move your site to responsive.
WPtouch allows you to transform your site into a responsive, mobile-friendly site with the click of a button:
You can instantly edit your mobile site themes, and content will transfer dynamically as you make edits on the desktop version.
You can even create landing pages specifically for mobile within the plugin, making it great to prepare for mobile-first indexing.
After you’ve got a responsive site setup, turn your focus to improving page speed and designing a better user experience for mobile users.
If people are bouncing from your site within seconds, Google knows that.
And trust me, it isn’t going to keep your page ranking first if the average time on site is five seconds.
That’s a clear signal that user’s problems aren’t being solved with your content or UX, making it irrelevant.
On top of that, 85% of online users won’t return to your site if they have a bad experience on mobile.
Poorly designed UX isn’t the only cause of that bad experience.
Mobile data collections show that mobile landing pages are dreadfully slow:
In fact, they take on average 3x the best practice to load.
And these slow load times lead to hugely inflated bounce rates:
You can’t risk a slow mobile site. Not when page speed is a mobile ranking factor now.
To keep up, eliminate heavy page elements and keep a simple design. I’ve been testing this on my mobile site with great success so far:
I have removed big elements and compressed images to create a simple, sleek design that is easy to read and use.
Try using plain white backgrounds with black text that is big enough for mobile.
Simplicity is key. Don’t use heavy CTAs and big images that slow your site down.
Simply put:
Mobile UX and speed are crucial to success in SEO right now.
Since that was a ton of information, let’s recap:
- Mobile-first indexing is rolling out
- Your content on desktop should match mobile
- Focus on improving your site speed
- Make sure that mobile pages are fast and simple in design
Follow these steps, and you will be prepared to take on the new mobile-first index. The state of SEO is changing, and mobile is becoming king.
2. Zero-result SERPs: SERPs are changing fast
With changes to Google’s algorithm, we’ve seen massive changes to the search results page over the last decade.
Back in 2010, our search results looked like this:
These simple results are vastly different than a given search engine results page in 2018.
Even in 2013, SERPs underwent massive changes, including different snippets, demographic categories, and social mentions:
But now, our SERPs contain tons of new elements, like answer boxes and frequently asked questions regarding the topic you search for:
Or detailed knowledge graphs for specific companies, displaying very complex and detailed information directly on the SERP.
For example, with the Evernote image above, you can find its social media profile, iTunes app, and Google Play link without ever clicking on its website.
You can even find a detailed product description, screenshots, and software compatibility data directly on the graph.
There is almost no need to click on…
COMMENTS