Imminent changes to the way Google indexes websites means you need to optimise your site for mobile viewing, sooner rather than later.

Where To Start Optimising Your Website

Recently and for the first time, browsing of websites on handheld devices has overtaken the use of desktop computers. In anticipation of this, Google had already started making noises about the way content is served on mobile devices. The 'mobile-first-index' will have a negative impact impact on your site if you don't make moves to improve it's functionality on smartphones and tablets.

The Top 3 Factors Influencing The Mobile First Index

Speed

Serving content fast is essential. Pay for the best hosting you can afford and optimise images, avoid too many server requests, use browser caching and compression tools to serve pages as quickly as possible.

Local Search Optimisation

Even if you're trying to gain visitors on a national level, optimising your site for local searches will help. Smartphones have in-built location services so look upon getting found locally, as a bonus rather than a limiting factor. Including properly formatted information about your business, throughout your site, will provide the information to Google, that it needs to position your business, higher than your competitors.

Responsive Website Design

This involves serving the same website on a smartphone as you would serve on a desktop computer but with the added benefit that the content structure adapts to smaller screens, keeping content and navigation readable without having to zoom in or scroll left and right. The alternative to this is to serve a separate website for mobile - this is generally accepted as being a poorer way to serve web pages to handheld devices and would require a separate registration with Google Search Console.