Mobile SEO: Dominating the Mobile-First Search Landscape

By the time you read this, everything we’ve learned about mobile SEO could be wrong.

This is because the existing paradigm is based on a desktop-first world, and Google is about to catapult us into a mobile-first world with a major update on how they crawl, render and rank the web.

Even the “Mobilegeddon” update of 2015, which promoted “mobile friendly” sites in the search results, did not approach the importance of what’s about to happen.

Google has already begun testing a mobile-first index that not only rewards mobile-friendly websites, but ranks the desktop version based on content it finds on the mobile version.

Until now, it has been the other way around.

Google’s Mobile-First Index

In July 2019, Google will begin using a mobile-first index.

Why the change?

When was the last time you checked your phone?

Probably pretty recently.

You may even be reading this blog post on your phone. Afterall, checking your phone is the new normal.

According to Deloitte’s U.S. mobile consumer survey results, Americans check their phone 47x per day.

And those browsers are buying on mobile, too.

Mobile commerce sales totaled $1.357 trillion in 2017, making up 58.9% of digital sales — a large jump in share from 40.2% in 2015.

In 2019, mobile commerce sales are projected to grow to 63.5% of total ecommerce sales. That’s $1.804 trillion in revenue.

As both phone usage and mobile commerce sales grow, so does the importance of mobile SEO.

Your potential customers need to easily find your website. Then, once they find it, they expect a seamless user experience.

Those are givens –– but despite all of us being mobile users (and experts at that), it isn’t always easy to nail a mobile-friendly strategy.

Today, we’ll go through:

• The history of mobile ecommerce SEO and websites.
• Exactly how to prepare for Google’s Speed Update in July 20109 (or how to buffer yourself from it)
• What both Google and consumers consider a mobile-first experience (i.e. seamless and convenient)
• What you should look for in ecommerce technology to make sure you aren’t doing all the legwork here

Let’s dive in.