Mobile First Optimisation

How important is Mobile-First for my website?

Google announced way back in November 2016 that they were going to be moving to a mobile-first index. Google used to use your desktop content to rank your website for both desktop and mobile. Whilst you may benefit from having a faster site on mobile and of course, having a mobile-friendly site, your rankings are still predominantly based on your desktop content. The mobile-first index is going to flip this on its head.

With the increase in the number of people accessing the web via a mobile device (overtaking desktop), Google has decided it makes more sense to base your rankings off your mobile content.

For a lot of sites, there won’t be a huge shift. For anyone who has a responsive site, the content on desktop and mobile is typically exactly the same.

If, however, you have a mobile site, you may choose to show less content to users who visit on mobile, in order to provide a better UX. If the content you choose not to show has strong SEO benefits on desktop, you are going to need to take a close look at this and work out how to bridge that content gap whilst still providing an awesome UX.

There is no hiding from the mobile-first index; it’s already here! Contact us if you’re concerned about your website.