Mobile-first goes beyond simply indexing in a search engine. It has several meanings, which traverse user-behaviour, web design, adoption in different territories, adoption amongst user segments, adoption in different verticals. We need to be aware of these fundamentals changes in search behaviour and adapt quickly.

1. SEO FOR THE MOBILE-
FIRST PARADIGM

2. Dawn Anderson
• Director
-­‐ Move
It
Marketing
• University
Lecturer
– Digital
marketing
&
Search
• From
Manchester,
UK
• International
SEO
Consultant
– 12+
Yrs in
SEO
• Pomeranian
Pooch
Lover
– Meet
Bert
&
Tedward
• Googebot Hunter
(Practice
&
Academia)
• Search
Awards
Judge
• Contributor
• Twitter
Chatterer
@dawnieando

3. THE MOBILE GLOBAL
MAJORITY HAS ARRIVED

5. MOBILE VIEW TIMES &
SESSIONS

6. MOBILE
GOES
BEYOND
THE
PHONE

9. THESE INCLUDE:
• Mobile-first as a user group %
• Mobile-first as a web design
discipline
• Mobile-first as a user choice &
behaviour
• Mobile-first as a means of indexing
documents in a search engine

11. What does
mobile-
first web
design
look like?

13. Source: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-first-index-2017-
23663.html
The ‘Mobile First
Index’ is on its
way.
IT WILL COME
SOON
MOBILE
THIS TIME LAST YEAR WE WERE
DISCUSSING THE FUTURE MOBILE-
FIRST INDEX

14. BUT NOW… IT IS HERE

16. MOBILEGEDDON
APRIL 21ST
2015

17. REMEMBER
CHICKEN
LICKEN?

18. Don’t Jump The Gun
IT IS BETTER TO BUILD A ‘THOUGHTFUL’ MOBILE-­FIRST
RESPONSIVE WEBSITE THAN RUSH INTO HASHING SOMETHING
TOGETHER

19. SO
WHAT’S
MOBILE-­‐
FIRST
INDEXING
ALL
ABOUT
THEN?

20. SEPARATE MOBILE SITES HAVE
HISTORICALLY BEEN RANKED
BASED ON THEIR CRAWLED
DESKTOP EQUIVALENT
BUT NOW
Image credit: Moz / Bridget Randolph

21. Indexing and ranking
are two very separate
things

22. MOBILE-FIRST
INDEXING
DOES NOT
MEAN MOBILE-
FRIENDLY

24. CONTENT
PARITY
ON
MOBILE
&
DESKTOP
SITES

25. CONTENT BEHIND
Tabs, Concertinas &
Hamburger Menus
designed for UX on
mobile is…
OK

26. ENSURE SEARCH
ENGINE ‘CRAWLERS’
CAN ACCESS
CONTENT HIDDEN
FOR UX
<div class="tab">
<button class="tablinks" onclick="openCity(event, 'London')">London</button>
<button class="tablinks" onclick="openCity(event, 'Paris')">Paris</button>
<button class="tablinks" onclick="openCity(event, 'Tokyo')">Tokyo</button>
</div>
Search engine crawlers
’mostly’ won’t be able to
access these tabs

27. BUT…
CONTENT PLACEMENT MATTERS
ALWAYS ANYWAY
MEET NEEDS… IN THE MAIN
CONTENT … EARLY IN THE
PAGE

28. Desktop versus responsive versus dynamic-
serving versus AMP versus M dot

29. CONTENT MOVES AROUND ON THE PAGE AS DEVICE
CHANGES
Recommended

30. “Dynamic
serving. Dynamic
serving is a setup
where the server
responds with different
HTML (and CSS) on the
same URL depending
on the user agent
requesting the page”
(Google Developers).
“When a mobile user or desktop
user is detected different content
for each is delivered from the
same web page URL”

31. DO
YOU
HAVE
SEPARATE
DESKTOP
AND
MOBILE
SITES
YOU MAY HAVE SOME
WORK TO DO FOR
‘MOBILE-­FIRST
INDEXING

32. • Ensure both the mobile and desktop sites serve
structured data
• Ensure Google’s crawlers can access the mobile
version of the site (and desktop too of course)
• No change is needed for canonical links on mobile
sites at this point.
• Ensure the mobile site is verified as a separate
property in Google Search Console.

33. DESKTOP
ONLY?
IT WILL STILL
BE INDEXED
X
X

34. Don’t Jump The Gun
IT IS BETTER TO BUILD A ‘THOUGHTFUL’ MOBILE-­FIRST
RESPONSIVE WEBSITE THAN RUSH INTO HASHING SOMETHING
TOGETHER

35. DESKTOP ONLY & CANONICAL
AMP PAGES
COULD BE AN INTERIM SOLUTION
(OR EVEN LONGER TERM)
BUT… BE CAREFUL WITH THIS. ‘CANONICAL’ MEANS YOU
ARE TELLING GOOGLE TO INDEX YOUR AMP PAGE INSTEAD
OF YOUR DESKTOP PAGE

37. AMP PAGES CAN LOOK ‘VERY’
DIFFERENT TO YOUR OTHER PAGES
NON AMP
AMP

38. AMP PAGES CAN LOOK ‘VERY’
DIFFERENT TO YOUR OTHER PAGES
YOU SHOULD SPEND SOME TIME
ON:
• Content parity
• Internal link parity
• Navigation configuration
• Call to action parity
Check everything
twice… at least
Even without mobile-
first when you add
AMP a lot of traffic
becomes ‘AMP’

39. AVOID AMP ERRORS

42. SPEED
ON
MOBILE
IS
‘OF
THE
ESSENCE’

44. YOU
WILL
LIKELY
INCREASE
CONVERSION
TOO

45. TEST
YOUR
MOBILE
SPEED

47. USE A RANGE OF
TOOLS TO
IDENTIFY ISSUES
& MEASURE
SPEED

48. IDENTIFY
MOBILE
FETCH
TIMES

49. GTMetrix & Pingdom Speed Test
Combine Page Speed Tests
MOBILE

51. WORK THROUGH THE
RECOMMENDATIONS

52. WORK TOWARD ACHIEVING
BETTER SCORES… ACROSS
MULTIPLE TOOLS

53. MAKING IMAGES SMALLER IS OFTEN THE
QUICKEST WIN TO SPEED UP A SITE

54. Source: https://www.designbombs.com/top-
wordpress-caching-plugins-compared/
CACHE PLUGINS COMPARED
Comparison Research Undertaken Recently by Design Bombs
MOBILE

55. Enable
gzip compression
via
caching
plugins,
.htaccess or
via
compression
plugins
MOBILE
NO
INTERSTITIALS
ON MOBILE
THANK YOU

56. BUT… YOU SHOULD
CERTAINLY RAISE ITS
PRIORITY

57. CHECK
FOR
MOBILE-­‐USABILITY
ISSUES

58. TAKE
THE
MOBILE-­‐FRIENDLY
TEST

59. ASK
GOOGLE
DIRECTLY
IN
SERPs

60. TAKE
THE
MOBILE
FRIENDLY
TEST

61. Connecting
‘things’
HELPS SEARCH ENGINES (MACHINES) DISAMBIGUATE
THE MEANINGS OF TEXT AND LINK TOGETHER THE
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ‘THINGS’ MENTIONED IN WEB
PAGES
2014
Structured
Data

62. Mark
up
all
manner
of
‘things’
with
special
code
for
‘machines’
to
understand
Structured
Data
It’s
becoming
quite
popular
2017

63. STRUCTURED DATA HELPS
SEARCH ENGINES DISAMBIGUATE
BETWEEN CONTENT WHICH IS
ABOUT E.G.
‘JAGUAR’ (CAR) AND ‘JAGUAR’
(CAT)
NB: IMAGES WORK
DIFFERENTLY – FOR
ILLUSTRATION OF
CONCEPT ONLY

64. STRUCTURED DATA HELPS PROVIDE A BETTER USER
EXPERIENCE

65. USE THE STRUCTURED DATA TESTING TOOL TO CHECK
FOR ERRORS AND ‘STRUCTURED-­DATA PARITY’
BETWEEN DESKTOP AND MOBILE WEBSITES

66. VOICE &
ASSISTIVE
SEARCH
• Keep sentences short
• Understand ‘actions’
• Put answers at the
beginning to sentences
and paragraphs
• Most results from
structured data
• Tables are a problem

67. WORK
ON
‘GOOGLE
MY
BUSINESS’
LOCAL
‘INTENT’

68. MEASURE MOBILE
TO PRIORITIZE
DEVICE
PRIORITY
QUERY
TYPES
PAGE
SPEED
HEAT
MAPS
&
EVENT
TRACKING

69. RIGHT
HELP
RIGHT
AUDIENCE
RIGHT
TIME
RIGHT
FORMAT
RIGHT
PLACE
RIGHT
DEVICE
BE
THERE
‘CONTEXTUAL SEARCH’

70. THANK
YOU
TWITTER - @dawnieando
LINKEDIN – msdawnanderson
www.move-it-marketing.co.uk