SEO Specialist

Google has been working on mobile-first indexing for some time, developed in response to the drastic shift in the way people search the web and the widespread adoption of mobile devices in almost every part of people's lives. Between when Google announced it and today, many have seen a nearly complete shift by Google to mobile-first indexing.

They will have switched all websites from desktop-first to mobile-first indexing, having been through a transitional period of moving sites over when their systems recognised they were ready to do so. So if you want your website to be prepared, hire a Google SEO specialist. To give you an idea of what they will do, read down below.

Check your metadata, schema markup and social metadata.

An SEO specialist will first add metadata, including titles, meta descriptions and schema markup on your websites. Titles and meta descriptions are common, but you may not be familiar with schema markup. These are additional fields that help Google, and other engines know how to categorise your content. Your mobile-friendly website should also feature social metadata, such as Twitter cards or Open Graph cards.

Ensure server capacity can handle the uptick in additional crawls.

Google obtains data from your sites when its algorithm crawls over them. Your site is not shut down while this occurs, which means that other web visitors could be on your site at the same time. Even though Google has crawl rate limits in place to reduce the effect that their analysis has on other web surfers' experiences, if your site doesn't have enough server capacity, lagging can occur. A Google SEO specialist will make sure your mobile optimised website can handle all search engine bots as well as visitor traffic. He/she will check your current server capacity and settings to make sure that lagging does not occur when your site is crawled by the new algorithm.

Add your mobile-optimised website to Google Search Console.

You can see your website's performance and rankings in Google's search results by checking it in the Google Search Console. You can use this free service to add new content to be crawled, monitor content performance, maintain your site and more. To see how Google's latest algorithm will affect your site's performance and to find out whether your mobile site is experiencing any issues, be sure to add your site's mobile version to your Google Search Console account.

No need to change internal Links

You don't have to change anything for interlinking with separate mobile URLs. If you’re using separate mobile URLs, retain the existing link rel=canonical, and then link rel=alternate elements between the two versions.

Take note of languages

An organic SEO specialist will see hreflang links on separate mobile URLs when you have multilingual WordPress. You’ll need to link between mobile and desktop URLs separately.

Don’t forget hosting

A Google SEO specialist will ensure the host servers can manage a rising crawl rate when you have your WordPress website's mobile version placed on a separate host.

Make sure to carry out verification

Even if you have your website's desktop version verified by the Google Search Console for mobile-first indexing for WordPress, that is still not enough. You’ll need to submit your mobile version of your WordPress as well to Google Search Console for verification.

Focus on SEO

Even though people will check your desktop version on a mobile, Google will continue to index it. So, continue with top-notch content and SEO practices.

Speed up your site

An organic SEO specialist knows the ways to focus on, to prepare for the mobile-first index. When it comes to conversions and overall user experience (UX), we recommend starting with your site speed, specifically focusing on mobile.

Consider the checkout process on mobile

Most customers buy on one device and end the transaction on another or in-store, as per Think with Google. How can we move beyond that and create a better checkout process on a mobile device? Streamlining your checkout process, especially on mobile devices, is a great way to help both speed up that process and lower barriers to conversion.

Don’t block CSS, JavaScript, or images

You need to block specific resources such as CSS, JavaScript, and images when the mobile design is first introduced. Some of these elements could often lead to slow loading as well as display issues, and it made more sense to hide them from GoogleBot on mobile.

Today, however, the landscape has changed. Smartphones are, in many cases, more powerful than the computers owned by users. They have faster processors, more memory, and more capacity to deal with anything we throw at them.

Google’s smartphone GoogleBot can also handle all of these elements. So if they can handle it, make sure you show them everything. That way, Google can categorise your content and rank it appropriately.

These are the things a Google SEO specialist will do to help you prepare for mobile-first indexing. Such experts will also check your videos on your website. They will make sure that your mobile site will follow the best video practices. They will also use URLs that won't change every time your page loads for videos. You can expect them to use supported tags and formats. They will use the same video structured data for your website's mobile and desktop version as well. Most importantly, they will place the video in a place where users can easily view it. So when you hire a Google SEO specialist, make sure to find excellent ones.