Google is always introducing new changes and amendments to improve upon their users experience with them. It is because of this that it is important to note the changes and updates released from Google. This will allow for any movement in rankings and SEO to be monitored. In this article, we have compiled insights on how mobile first indexing can affect your SEO. This will allow you to take charge of your own rankings.
Changes to mobile first informational needs
Generalising what sort of content should be applied to a mobile first index is not good practice, as every search query is unique in what the user is looking for, and how Google ranks it.
Personal and conversational searches are driven by mobile searches, and are the newest form of searching on Google, and derives from how people search for queries on their phone.
Personal searches include highly topical and conversational language such as ‘I’ and ‘me’. There has been a 60% growth in mobile searches for ‘for me’ over the past two years, and an 80% growth for searches including ‘should I’ over the same amount of time.
Personal searches fall into three individual categories:
- Solving a problem
- Exploring around me
- Getting things done
Conversational searches are searches where the user speaks in a natural language, and expects a natural response back from the mobile which they are searching on. This is important to bear in mind for things such as content creation, as optimising your old and new content for mobile users can dramatically increase your traffic and revenue.
Would a visitor to your site understand the content produced?
Google is very good at deciphering the good content from the bad. Over a period of time, enough data is collected from viewport and click time data to put together a picture of what content pieces are good answers to the search queries, and Google will rank these higher. Google uses machine learning to understand what will benefit the user in terms of the content output, so if your content is entirely key word focused, with complex or vague answers, then your rankings will suffer and be penalised as a result.
Mobile-first doesn’t mean user friendliness
Mobile first indexing is a question of satisfying the users intent through providing convenience. This means that you need to think about what your content will provide to users, and implement that into your work. You need to consider aspects such as:
- Does the user’s search query require a short and simple answer, or a longer, more in depth answer to be resolved?
- Does your site make it harder for the user to find an answer to their search query?
- Does your page offer a comparison between different products or services?
Deciding what is relevant in a mobile first index
People searching on different devices will search for different things, in different ways. The user intent behind search queries is always changing, as is Google’s ability to better understand language, jargon and context.
Since Google’s approach to understanding what is satisfying their users is constantly being improved upon, we should do the same.
As we learn what our users want to get out of our content, our approach should change with the rankings on SERPs. One user using a mobile device to search for a query may be in a younger demographic to those who search for the same query on a desktop device, and so the resulting pages shown will differ due to this reason.
Keeping your content relevant requires time, research and understanding your demographic. You shouldn’t use keyword synonyms as an answer to relevant content, but rather using your content to solve particular problems, at different times of the day, and on different devices, to reach specific demographics.
If you are looking for more information regarding the latest digital updates, be sure to check out the rest of In Front Digital’s blogs, or get in touch with us to see how we can help you and your business. We offer digital marketing services in Birmingham, managing SEO and PPC campaigns for your websites or business.