With the balance of internet users now turning to mobile devices to complete their online searches, it can be no surprise that Google is now turning more attention to those users.

Whilst Google constantly updates its algorithms to try and produce the best possible results for its users, a recent change has the potential to be significant. This change is known as the ‘mobile Googlefirst index’.

What Is the Mobile First Index?

What better way to explain than to let Google have their say –

“To make our results more useful, we’ve begun experiments to make our index mobile-first. Although our search index will continue to be a single index of websites and apps, our algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site, to understand structured data, and to show snippets from those pages in our results. Of course, while our index will be built from mobile documents, we’re going to continue to build a great search experience for all users, whether they come from mobile or desktop devices.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Haven’t Google Made Moves In This Direction Before?

Google have made moves into the mobile search market before, most notably with their ‘mobilegeddon’ updates in 2015 and 2016. Both of these were designed to reward websites which were Googledesigned with mobile usability in mind.

Whilst Google is currently focusing on ensuring that webmasters take at least some efforts to ensure their websites are ‘mobile friendly’, it is certainly worth taking the time to go that extra mile if possible.

Please Note – You can find out if your website is mobile friendly by clicking on the following link and entering your URL – https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly

Basically, our take on this update is that if the desktop version and mobile version of your website differ greatly, Google will now view your mobile version as the first choice website.

What Do We Recommend?

The good news is that at Footprint Web Design, we design all of our sites to be fully ‘mobile friendly’ and therefore no major changes are required.

Below are a couple of methods that we utilise to ensure this is the case.

  • Use Responsive Web Designs – This type of web design technique will ensure that your website displays and works perfectly on all devices.
  • App Development – Although Google’s new ‘mobile first’ index is focused on mobile based websites, the development of a dedicated app for your business can lead to a great user experience

For more on Footprint Web Design and our app development services, please click here.

Further Information

If you’d like to speak to us regarding any of our services, including our WordPress web designs, please give us a call on 01883 372488 or contact us via Facebook and we’ll be happy to talk you through your options.

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