The use of mobile internet is getting more popular than ever. More than 50% of the web pages are open on mobile phones. The number of mobile internets is steadily growing each year. Web browsing is shifting from desktop-centric to mobile-centric. It demands a responsive web page experience for mobile internet users.
It is confirmed by Google that mobile sites are given priority in search. Search engines are meant to deliver important and helpful content which are easy to navigate on mobile as well as desktop. A significant ranking is given by Google to responsive pages.
Responsive Web Design
Responsive Web Design is a development technique that serves the same HTML on the same URL regardless of the specific device dimensions unlike dynamic serving, which uses different HTML but the same URL. It also improves the site speed. The site speed depends upon the HTML-to-text ratio. The high HTML-to-text ratio slows down the speed of time.
Impact of Mobile-First Indexing on SEO
Mobile-first indexing means that your mobile site is the first thing that Google includes in their index and decides to rank. It acts as a baseline for determining rankings. On the other hand, it doesn’t mean that your site is indexed only on a mobile. Google crawler will crawl your site on the desktop as well. A poor mobile appearance and user experience can drastically hurt the rankings of your site even if your desktop site is fine.
Benefits of Site Speed and Responsive Web Design for SEO
The site speed and a responsive web design benefits SEO and overall digital marketing efforts. The reasons why site speed and web responsiveness is beneficial for SEO are mentioned below:
Boost Ranking
A ranking boost is given by Google for responsive web pages. Having a site that is mobile-friendly, tablet-friendly and desktop-friendly will have chances of ranking higher in search engines. Unresponsive web pages provide a poor user experience. Hence, cuts you off from the potential traffic.
Web-Page Speed
The web page speed is a search engine rank deciding factor. A web page that is created to run on mobile will load faster. Hence, providing a better user experience and helping the site in various ways. Google also offers various tools to check your web page speed and to see the results of SEO efforts.
Better User Engagement
The user behaviour and signals are combined to provide a better ranking. Having a mobile and tablet version improves these, and will have a big second-hand impact on your rankings.
It is observed that if a user accesses a site with a responsive design, they’ll stay on the site longer and visit more pages. Such users are less likely to leave right away. These are signs of a quality web page. The search engine considers these signs. Hence, reducing the bounce rate. The lower the bounce rate the better is the ranking.
Social-Media Shares
People tend to share web content more on mobile rather than on desktop. Since almost all social media apps are mostly used on mobiles, it is easier to share information via mobile. Even Facebook and Google gives you options to choose for the device visibility of your ads. The number of shares of web content tells the quality and reach of the content. More visitors means web-page content is important. Hence, the rank will be decided accordingly.
Less Duplicity of Content
Having different mobile and desktop sites means having a difficult time managing duplicate content-related issues and separate URL’s. You have to make it clear to Google which of your content is most vital and is being indexed. Otherwise, Google will have to decide for you. The problem arises when the content on desktop and mobile is the same and the URL is different for both.
Though Google’s algorithms are intelligent, it still requires direction about the importance of a website’s content.
The duplicate content present on the website can seriously harm the ranking of your site.
Website speed and mobile responsiveness are undoubtedly some important on-page ranking factors. Responsive web pages are crucial factors for deciding the rank in search engines. Hence, Mobile responsiveness and site speed are not just a web designing part but also the standard components from an SEO perspective.
