Google flips its approach to search indexing
Until recently, Google has indexed sites according to the desktop experience and content in the desktop version. Google didn’t consider mobile versions of websites in its rankings. Toward the end of 2016, Google made an announcement that it is moving to a mobile-first index “in the coming months.” In March 2017 at SMX West, Gary was asked what was delaying the mobile-first index launch. He suggested Google wants to maintain a “quality neutral” transition, and Google did not want search results to have a large impact from this launch. In June 2017, Google suggested change would likely be coming in 2018. At the very end of 2017, Google began to roll out this change to a few websites. Recently, Google began rolling out the mobile-first index to more sites that follow best practices for the mobile-first index.
What’s changing
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So, what exactly is a mobile-first index? Let’s take a look.
Today more than ever, users are searching on Google with a mobile device. Historically, Google search results have been calculated using the desktop version of a page’s content when calculating rank. This presents a problem in cases where there were differences in content between the mobile and desktop versions of a page.
mobile search usage for marketers
Image courtesy of
Noting the shift by users from desktop to mobile, Google is reworking how it calculates search results. Mobile-first indexing is exactly what it sounds like. Google is changing its search index to consider mobile versions of a site’s content first. Note that it’s not called a “mobile only index” – that means if you don’t have a mobile-friendly version your desktop version can still be indexed, but may be penalized in favor of a site that does have mobile-friendly content. Google is maintaining that when this rollout is complete, its search index will continue to be a single index. There will not be a separate index for mobile and desktop. However, during the rollout period, there will be mobile-first and desktop-first indexes.
How does mobile-first impact SEO?
This is clearly a big change by Google in its approach to calculating search ranking. How exactly is it going to impact search ranking for sites?
If you have a responsive or dynamic site already and your content and markup is the same for both mobile and desktop versions, not much will change for you. Google will simply start indexing the mobile version of your site first. Since your content and markup is the same, you should see very little change.
What could change is your SERP standings if there are currently content ranking above you that don’t have responsive sites. That’s right, you could see a bump as others take a hit. While this may not be a lasting impact, it is possible that some sites will see increased traffic through rankings as the mobile first approach shuffles existing content around the SERPs.
So, what does that mean for folks without a responsive site or who aren’t ready for mobile first? If you have a separate mobile site and it doesn’t have the same content and markup as the desktop version, it’s likely you will experience some changes in search rankings as a result of this announcement. Don’t freak out though. Google is far from finished with its rollout, and there are some straightforward changes that you can make to minimize the impact of this change.
How to prepare for a mobile-first index
Regardless of whether you have a responsive website or separate mobile and desktop site, you should head over to Google Search Console soon. Use the Fetch and Render tool and set the user-agent to “mobile: smartphone.” After the fetch and render is complete, take a look at the preview. What you see is likely what Google is seeing for its mobile indexing calculations. If you have a responsive website, you should notice very few, if any, differences in content. As previously mentioned, the rollout of mobile-first indexing will have minimal impact on responsive design sites.
If You Currently Have Separate Sites?
If you have separate desktop and mobile sites, you will probably notice some differences between the two. Google is making it clear that it wants you to accommodate mobile users. If you don’t already have a plan in place to move to a responsive design, it’s a good idea to start as soon as possible. This requires an investment of time and money and will not happen overnight. If you need assistance switching to a responsive design, let us know.
Content
The most important thing to do is to ensure that your primary content is on your mobile site. Google is being clear in it’s switch to looking at mobile first, and serving only a small portion of your content on a mobile site is detrimental to your site’s rank performance. This is specifically impactful for retailers who serve a separate mobile site that quickly load a lighter weight version of the thousands of product pages that they manage. Ensuring your
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At the core of everything we do as digital marketing professionals is findability. Whether it’s a product, feature, service, information, or education offered, we need the message to reach our audience and inspire them to make a choice. Whether the choice is a a purchase, email signup, or something else, the first step is getting our message in front of the right audience at the right time. The goal of content writing is to get our brand found, create conversions, and generate revenue.
Many disciplines stem from this need in our industry. Marketing, advertising, public relations, merchandising, and others have the same goal: to get found and create action. At Demand Sphere we are working on the science of what are rol romi and roas in marketing findability every day, across multiple marketing channels, content types, and platforms. Keeping the best practices of search, social, email, and content marketing in mind, we analyze the content writing processes and now identify several common issues faced by many organizations. You may be experiencing some of these as well.
Current Content Writing Hurdles
In working with a wide variety of customers over the years, we see a variety of content writing workflows. There are customers developing workflows for content writing that don’t stick, or aren’t as effective as they like. Several common issues we observe include:
Ideation isn’t data driven
The workflow structure doesn’t account for real analysis
The workflow is inflexible to organization changes or resources
It becomes overly siloed
Workflows have too many dependents
The workflow isn’t a closed-loop system
Content writing doesn’t have to be a complex process that is difficult to follow. Addressing these issues is pretty straightforward and helps you create content that gets you found, generates conversions, and increases revenue. Let’s take a look at how to overcome these issues.
Data-Driven Ideation
In many cases, ideation isn’t data driven even though it appears that it is. Often, the whole marketing ecosystem isn’t being considered, only a specific department or channel. This leads to only a sliver of data or moment in time being used to make important decisions. Many people we speak to say it’s impossible to get their entire organization on the same page or to use the same workflow. We use the Get Found workflow to bypass those issues. It works by using our Segment Mapping technology to gather information about the market, competitors, products, features, campaigns, messages, and more – without involving every department.
Another issue in data-driven ideation is looking at data that has been grouped together incorrectly. That’s where the Segment Map comes in. If you look at email data, search data, or other information together as one group you are missing the details that help you create great content. That data includes the subtle difference in performance between the marketing channel, marketing platform, and content type. It also includes campaign messaging across various locations, as well as differences in keyword research by audience or funnel stage.
Ensuring data is driving the ideation portion of the content writing process is crucial to creating content that will get you found. Not allowing data to drive the process means you’re operating on a “best guess.” Don’t guess!
Analysis-Based Structure
Sometimes the structure of a workflow doesn’t allow for deep analysis. This happens when the content writing process isn’t set up to be segmented, recombined, and understood across an organization. A good understanding of what content is already out cn numbers there and who is creating it is important to your marketing decisions. This helps you identify gaps that may exist in messaging, content type, or other areas. Filling gaps with new and unique content is a great way to improve findablity.
You also want to understand of which content types perform well for your target audience. Creating content in a format that resonates with your audience may mean trying new tactics such as video or a slide deck. It may mean changes to your social media or email strategy. The only way to understand if it is the campaign / message, video as a content type, or Facebook as a platform that resonates is to segment each aspect of the marketing this way and compare them equally.
Segment Mapping
Creating a Segment Map will help you uncover these opportunities. To create a Segment Map, you can contact us – or start by making a chart of the following:
Brands
Products
Services
Solutions
Features
Benefits
Locations
Content types
Marketing channels
Marketing platforms
Audiences
Funnel stages
segment map for content marketing
From here, you’ll want to tag relevant content with the associated group names. Once you have completed that, you’ll assign keywords and phrases to each group as well. Need a hand? Let us know!
Communicating and reporting this information throughout your organization effectively is essential for an efficient process. Duplicating efforts within.