In order to have a strong foothold in the competitive field of SEO, you need to ensure that you’re keeping up with industry trends and the accepted practices that come along with it. One trend you definitely need a grasp on is mobile-first indexing.
Mobile-first indexing brings about a very different way of indexing and crawling websites. Given how seriously Google takes its rules, you’ll want to make sure that your company adheres to these new rules if you want to continue enjoying the high rankings and traffic that you’re used to.
For those wanting to incorporate mobile-first indexing, you’re in luck—it’s fairly easy to understand mobile-first indexing.
What is mobile-first indexing?
In the past, Google indexed websites by crawling through a company’s desktop version of a website first to develop a ranking. In 2016, mobile use had far surpassed desktop use, so Google decided it was time to start crawling through mobile sites first.
Why this matters for SEO
Mobile-first indexing is important for SEO writers to understand because of the nature of mobile itself. Most content writers are more familiar with the freedom to write to their heart’s content; however, with writing for mobile sites, the goal is shorter paragraphs with more concise sentences. That is, the content needs to read easily on a mobile screen. Just make sure you don’t sacrifice your important information: high-quality content, location tags, metadata and keyword strings.
Even though mobile devices are advancing quickly, one thing that won’t be able to change that much is screen size. Your mobile phone will always be smaller than a tablet so it’ll fit in a pocket.