How to prepare your website to stay ahead of Google's mobile first indexing?

Google's mobile-first index is a clear testament to just how far mobile has gone in terms of influencing search engine optimisation as a whole.

From the term alone, one main fact can be easily surmised, mobile is the future. In such a brief amount of time, mobile's lofty trajectory is proof of this. This is why it's high time for any webmaster or seo agency to start thinking of new strategies that they can use once the said policy has been fully implemented by the search engine giant.

What is Mobile-First Indexing?

Mobile-first indexing, simply put, prioritizes your site's mobile version over its desktop one when it comes to not only indexing but also in determining its overall rank, how Google reads its structured data, and how its snippets would be rendered as a user views it on a search result page.
This is a significant change that would inevitably create large ripples across the search engine optimization field. It's part of Google's move to provide an even better search experience for a world that is evidently (as proven by statistics) becoming more reliant on mobile devices. Their index, in short, will now be primarily composed of mobile documents rather than traditional desktop once. This certainly means a lot for any seo expert.

Use Responsive Web Design:

Mobile responsiveness has always been overlooked by many in the past, but now it's become nothing short of a necessity for any website that means to make it to the top of search results for their chosen keywords. In fact, such is its importance that any website that is not responsive should no longer be considered as optimised.
You may already be aware of the usual practices that pertains to using responsive designs, but know that it is not all about using the right screens. Responsiveness also involves keeping your site as usable as possible as well What's good is that plenty of popular website builders automatically include responsive designs or readily take mobile responsiveness into mind when helping users create their own websites. Site speed is hugely influential
Mobile optimisation is also widely concerned with how fast your site loads for users. In fact, any microsecond difference between your site and your competitor's could mean the difference between ranking on top or not Site speed is vital simply because Google wants to have as much convenient for their users as possible. Information should be made available at arm's reach without the hassle of lengthy page loading times. With the advent of voice search and considering its myriad unprecedented benefits, the standards for speed are only ever bound to increase with the passage of time.
There are plenty of seo diagnostic tools that you can use to test how quickly your site's individual pages load so this shouldn't be difficult to address. It's imperative that you make sure that all of them are loading as fast as possible. Remove elements that are burdensome to your site's page loading times. Below is one other powerful tool that you can use to make sure that your site is never on the slow side.

Try Accelerated Mobile Pages:

Google is proactively assisting webmasters in adapting to their major changes by freely developing and providing platforms for them. One such prime example of this is Accelerated Mobile Pages (abbreviated as AMP). This is an open-source project by Google that lets website builders create mobile pages that are, as is obvious from the term, really fast. AMPS are basically optimised HTML pages that are able to load mobile pages quickly; lightning-fast, actually, as proven by their icons.
This does take some time to grasp fully, though, for it is a wholly different way for you to create optimised mobile pages. What's good is that Google is more than generous in providing users with tutorials and references that would make it easier for them to give AMPS a try. And what's equally certain is that you'll no longer have to worry about being too slow for mobile once you have properly rendered your mobile site's pages as AMPS.

Optimise Your Content For Mobile:

As said above, search engine optimisation is now largely concerned with mobile optimization as well What aspect of your content is still far behind in terms of how it would be rendered on a mobile device? It's never safe to assume that the website building platform that you chose would be able to do all the job for you Are you using videos and images that are compatible with the latest smart devices? Images should be able to retain their quality regardless of whether they change their size if viewed on different devices. Have you checked the size of the font when it loads on a mobile device? As much as possible, you should refrain from writing long, winding paragraphs. Buttons and every other element should always be easy to use and accessible.
It's fairly easy to optimise your content for mobile because of Google's own Mobile-Friendliness Test. In this age when mobile is rising, this tool has become important now more than ever. However, you should also be aware of the content you choose to put in your site before you even opt to publish it as not everything can be fixed by one-click solutions that website builders provide.

Conclusion:

There's better way for you to prepare for the advent of Google's mobile-first indexing than being aware of and doing the ways for you to easily adapt to these major changes. Don't hesitate to follow the guidelines we've so you'll be a step ahead of the rest once the policy rolls out in full (which is undoubtedly sooner than later).
Sometimes, it doesn't hurt to be meticulous when it comes to checking every detail of your site to make sure that it is as ready as possible for a change that is as big as this Ina search engine that is obviously becoming more mobile-centric, webmasters that conform quickly are bound to reap the best results, as opposed to the ones that might end up, regrettably, in SERP oblivion.