You're shifting to a mobile-first indexing strategy. How do you prioritize your SEO tasks effectively?

1 Mobile Audit

Start by conducting a thorough mobile audit of your website. This involves checking the mobile responsiveness of your site, ensuring that content is easily accessible and readable on smaller screens. Check for mobile usability issues like text that's too small to read, buttons that are too close together, and any intrusive interstitials that might hinder a user's experience. Google's Mobile-Friendly Test tool can help you identify these issues. Remember, a mobile-friendly website is not just about aesthetics; it's about functionality and user experience.

2 Content Consistency

Ensure content consistency across both mobile and desktop versions of your site. Google's mobile-first indexing prioritizes mobile content, so if there are significant differences between versions, your SEO could suffer. Verify that text, images, videos, and links are equivalent on both platforms. It's also important to maintain the same meta titles and descriptions, structured data, and social metadata to ensure that your search signals are uniform.

3 Speed Optimization

Speed is a critical factor for mobile websites. Users expect fast loading times, and search engines reward sites that deliver them. Optimize images, leverage browser caching, and minify code to reduce loading times. Utilize tools like Google's PageSpeed Insights to analyze and improve the speed of your mobile site. Faster loading times can significantly improve user experience and decrease bounce rates, which in turn can positively impact your SEO ranking.

4 User Experience

Focusing on the user experience (UX) of your mobile site is paramount. This means designing for touch navigation, making calls to action (CTAs) clear and easy to tap, and ensuring that forms are user-friendly. A positive mobile UX leads to increased engagement and time spent on your site, which search engines interpret as a sign of quality content. Additionally, consider the user's journey from the search results page to the desired action on your site and make it as seamless as possible.

5 Technical SEO

Don't overlook technical SEO for your mobile site. This includes optimizing your robots.txt file to ensure search engines can crawl your mobile pages, using hreflang tags for language or regional URLs, and implementing AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) if applicable. Also, ensure that your mobile site is secure by using HTTPS, as search engines favor secure sites. Technical SEO can be complex, but it's essential for ensuring that search engines can access and index your mobile content correctly.

6 Monitor & Update

Finally, continuously monitor and update your mobile site. SEO isn't a one-time task; it requires ongoing attention. Use tools like Google Search Console to track your mobile site's performance and stay updated with any changes in mobile-first indexing policies. Regularly check for broken links, test your site on different devices, and keep an eye on how your mobile site ranks in comparison to competitors. Staying proactive will help you maintain and improve your SEO over time.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?