Australian businesses need to be prepared for a big change in the Google search landscape.
Google has been working on a new “mobile-first “search regime which will reward websites which perform better on mobile phones – and this change may roll out later this year.
While Google has been working on the mobile-first index for some time, there’s been talk that this could be the year it happens. We all know that making sure your website ranks well in search results is important to being found by customers. And businesses are aware of the importance of having a mobile-responsive website.
What they need to know now is that a new frontier is coming. The Google move means business needs to pay attention to the effect their website content is having on mobile users.
Google has stated that most people are searching on Google using a mobile device, yet its search ranking systems have, until now, typically looked at the desktop version of a page’s content to evaluate its relevance. Mobile-first indexing is going to change that.
There are some fundamental differences between the mobile and desktop search experiences that have implications for the critical first few seconds that users experience a website.
Within mobile’s highly limited screen real estate, there are only a few on-page elements that will have a strong influence on whether visitors decide to stay or go. The most influential elements are likely to be the main headline and a small amount of text like a subheading or an image.
Business needs to be aware of Google’s pending shift and ask their web developers to be prepared. If you can’t be found on Google, it decreases your ability to be competitive.
Woj Kwasi, Founder, Kwasi Digital Agency
