What an invigorating second day of #SEOWeek! Here we learned all about what it means to be mobile-first and how everyone can get in on the action. Here’s a quick overview of what happened.
The Basics
What is Mobile-First?
Everyone’s been throwing around the phrase “mobile-first” but what exactly does it mean? Essentially, Google prioritizes on mobile over other devices.
Mobile-Friendly vs Mobile-First?
Mobile-friendly means your existing desktop-first site needs to be adjusted to suit the same requirements on mobile. On the contrary, mobile-first means that mobile users are the primary focus and that a website should initially be designed for mobile.
Getting Ready to be Mobile-Friendly
How do I even Optimize for Mobile?
Our short and condensed answer to this includes the following:
- Design: Design elements should be properly configured for a mobile user.
- Font Size: Shouldn’t have to zoom.
- Touch Elements: Shouldn’t be too close.
- Viewport: Content (webpage) should be set properly according to the device size.
Marking up your Site via Structured Data
Structured data helps search engines pull key information from your site, to deliver to the user directly on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Structured data helps drive Click-Through Rate and enhances the overall user experience.
If you’re interested in learning more about structured data, check out our last webinar, “Adopting a Mobile-First Philosophy.”
Why is Being Fast so Important?
The average consumer will leave a page if it doesn’t load in four seconds. That evidence coupled with the fact that it affects your page ranking should be reason enough to consider checking your page load time.
Mobile Page Speed
Your mobile page speed influences search rankings and user experience. The impact of a slower speed means an increase in mobile bounce rates and a decrease in search rankings for both desktop and mobile search results.
Three Key Metrics for Mobile Speed
The biggest takeaway in regards to mobile are these factors:
- Speed index.
- Total requests.
- Page weight.
What is Speed Index & How do I Improve it?
Speed Index is the average time (in milliseconds) at which visible parts of the page are displayed. A higher speed index means a slower page load. Implement the following:
- Decrease the weight of the elements above the fold.
- Reduce picture size, use lighter fonts, etc. (Helps them load faster)
- Maintain a speed index of 5,000 or less.
What are Total Requests & How do I Improve them?
It is the total number of requests on your page. Having a lot of requests increases the page speed through the transfer of information, increasing the page weight.
Use Chrome Development Tool to fix this. You’ll be able to see each request organized by type (JS, Images, CSS, Fonts, etc.), and identify which ones are the heaviest.
What is Page Weight & How do I Improve it?
All the extra stuff, like images, content, and videos, contribute to Page Weight. So, the heavier a page is, the longer the load time, which isn’t appealing to users. Images tend to be the heaviest element impacting page weight.
In order to improve it, you need to decrease the number of images and compress their size. Overall, you need to find a different way to present your heavy elements, particularly anything above the fold. Keep in mind, main images shouldn’t be larger than 100kb and other images can stay in the 20 to a 50 kb range.
What You Need to Remember about Mobile Auditing
- Check how many resources you’re using. Every resource requires a connection to be established.
- See if you’re using too many requests in the head or before rendering. This could slow you down!
- Your images might be too big in weight (kbs) or you may have too many.
If you’re craving more information and need to immerse yourself in the whole experience, click here to watch the full webinar! Plus, you’ll get to see our cool demo of a mobile site audit in REAL TIME.
