A presentation about the mobile first index for the Designing For Digital Conference 2017

1. John Leo Weber
Director of Digital Marketing
Geek Powered Studios
Upasna Gautam
Digital Marketing Manager
Geek Powered Studios
@johnleoweber @upasnagautam
Adapt or Die:
Designing For Google's Mobile-First Index

2. @johnleoweber
What Is The Google Algorithm?
A system used by Google to decide what information to
show to a user on search result pages
• Core Ranking Algorithm (approx. 10,000 signals)
• Local Filters (Pigeon and Hummingbird)
• Content Filter (Panda)
• Link/Web Spam Filter (Penguin)
• Rank Brain Machine Learning (Algorithmic Update)

3. @johnleoweber
What About The Mobile First-Index?
• Will be rolled out “sometime this year”
• A website will be ranked in Google based on the
mobile version of the website
• If no mobile version of the website is found, the
desktop version will be used for ranking

4. @johnleoweber
Why Is Doing This?
• More than 50% of Google searches are mobile
• Frustrating for users when unable to access “full site”
• Forces us to stop treating mobile as an afterthought
• Aligns with other recent changes to SERPs

5. @johnleoweber
If is modifying their
own site for mobile, then we
should, too…

6. @johnleoweber
Back Then
• 7 map-pack results
• Side bar layout (designed
for desktop)
• 3 ads at top of page

7. @johnleoweber
Now
• 3 map-pack results
• 1 column layout
• 4 ads at top of page

8. @johnleoweber
Who Will Be Affected?
• m.website.com will be hit the hardest if the mobile site
contains less content, meta, markup language, etc
• PRO TIP: claim both example.com and m.example.com
in Webmaster Tools
• Fully responsive sites will be largely unaffected

9. @johnleoweber
Why This Signals Massive Change

10. @johnleoweber
The Universal Truths of Mobile
• Less is more
• Responsive does not mean treat both screens as the same
• Your users aren’t thinking about what device they are on, so think for them
•Tablets are NOT mobile devices
•Speed Matters: “74% of users will bounce if your mobile website takes
longer than 5 seconds to load.” -Simon Bolger, Google

11. @johnleoweber
Just To Scare You!

12. @upasnagautam
Mobile-First Checklist
• Mobile Content and Navigation
• Structured Data
• Site Search
• Form Entry
• Usability
Mobile users are very goal-oriented. They expect to be able to get
what they need, immediately, and on their own terms.

13. @upasnagautam
Mobile Content & Navigation
•Focus your homepage on
connecting users with
content they’re looking for
•CTAs are front and center
•Keep menus short and
sweet
•Make it easy to get back to
the homepage
•Say no to app interstitials!

14. @upasnagautam
Structured Data
•Make sure to serve structured markup
for both the desktop and mobile
versions
•Use Google’s Structured Data Testing
Tool
•Avoid adding large amounts of markup
that isn’t relevant to the specific
information/content of each document
•Use robots.txt testing tool to verify that
your mobile site is accessible to
Googlebot

15. @upasnagautam
Site Search
•Make site search visible
(don’t hide it in menus)
•Ensure results are
relevant
•Use filters to narrow
results
•Guide users to better
and/or similar results

16. @upasnagautam
Form Entry
•Streamline information
entry
•Choose simplest input
•Design efficient forms

17. @upasnagautam
Usability
•Optimize your entire site for mobile
•Don’t make users pinch-to-zoom
•Tell users which orientation works
best
•Keep the user in a single browser

18. @upasnagautam
Most important to keep in mind:
Mobile users are goal-oriented. They expect to
be able to get what they need, immediately, and
on their own terms.
Thank you!
Questions?
@johnleoweber