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Many SEO specialist has observed that fewer consumers use a desktop computer nowadays when searching online. They instead use mobile devices. For such reason, many online businesses are putting great efforts into improving the quality and ranking of their websites so they can earn catch the attention of more customers. As of now, the best SEO UK professionals and marketers have been prioritising mobile content, allowing them to rank well on Google through mobile-first indexing.

Through mobile-first indexing, Google prioritises the mobile version of websites when it comes to crawling, ranking, and indexing over desktop versions. But what can you do to ensure that you provide the best experience to your users through mobile devices? To help, a few recommended practices are listed below.

Speed up your site

There are several tactics to focus on to be ready for the mobile-first index. A Google SEO specialist advises on first improving the mobile website speed to improve the overall user experience.

Consider the checkout process on mobile

Completing an online purchase on a different website happens to 85% of customers. How can we move beyond that and create a better checkout process on a mobile device? Streamlining your checkout process, especially on mobile devices, is a great way to help both speeds up that process and lower barriers to conversion.

Don’t block CSS, JavaScript, or images

Organic SEO specialist first blocked resources like CSS and JavaScript when they started to design websites for mobile devices. Some of these elements could often lead to slow loading as well as display issues, and it made more sense to hide them from GoogleBot on mobile.

Today, however, the landscape has changed. Smartphones are, in many cases, more powerful than the computers owned by users. Most owned computers have slower processors, less memory and capacity than newer smartphones. Google’s smartphone GoogleBot can also handle all of these elements. So if they can handle it, make sure you show them everything. That way, Google can categorise your content and rank it appropriately.

Don’t jump the gun

An SEO specialist always says mobile-friendly tests will not make websites mobile-ready. Many websites rolled out sub-standard changes simply to avoid a ranking drop when the April 2015 mobile-friendly update rolled out, negatively impact the UX of sites for visitors. Google has said that it is better to not sacrifice a fully functional desktop-focused site and wait to roll out URLs that provide a positive user experience for mobile visitors rather than rushing and producing something substandard just for mobile-first indexing.

Think about ‘information overload’ in an over-connected mobile-first world

Can you say the same things or meet the same informational need (i.e., provide ‘substantively’ the same) in a shorter, more concise way? Here, the use of executive summaries, TDLR, table of contents, named anchors which jump quickly to the important sections of the page or back up to the top quickly will all add to user delight.  With time, achieving first place in voice search queries is very possible.

Flash is a total no-no

Do not post content that uses Flash. Talk to your developer to explore alternatives to flash by combining HTML5 and JavaScript, or CSS3. Many of the features Flash have provided can be at least in part emulated or entirely replaced by these newer markup and coding technologies.

Check your metadata, schema markup and social metadata.

If you are not doing so already, it is time to start adding metadata, including titles, meta descriptions, and schema markup to your sites. Although many Google SEO specialist know titles and meta descriptions since these are common, some might not know schema markups. These are additional fields that help Google, and other engines know how to categorise your content. Your mobile-friendly website should also feature social metadata, such as Twitter cards or Open Graph cards.

Ensure server capacity can handle the uptick in additional crawls.