Just to recap a bit… If you are not creating your website and content with the mindset of how it will look and work on a mobile (smartphone) sized screen, you will be hurting your chances at getting good rankings. A good UX (User Experience) on a mobile device is mandatory in today’s SEO.

I realize that almost all of us are used to using a desktop/laptop computer to surf the web and to view our websites as we build them out. That is still OK to do. BUT you must be sure that your website’s performance and look does not create a poor UX on mobile.

When Google first indexes your content and then ranks it, Google will use what it sees on the mobile version of your content. Mobile-First Indexing is how Google is indexing and ranking you right NOW! So if you have noticed lower rankings lately, you may want to see how Mobile Friendly your website is.

OTHER WAYS WA IS HELPING US

There are two major factors that Google will use first to determine a good UX on mobile, Responsive Design and Fast Loading Speed. Wealthy Affiliate helps us to achieve both of these but it is up to us to make them work to our advantage. Here is how.

RESPONSIVE DESIGN

Make sure the WordPress theme you are using provides a clean functional Responsive Design. Even though the majority of WordPress themes are responsive, not all themes carry out this function effectively. This is why I have always advocated that you create a free SiteRubix website to test themes.

Why I Use a Free SiteRubix Website to Test Themes and Plugins

Using a simple theme that doesn’t have large header images and a bunch of sliders will be better for a good mobile UX. Why? It will cut down on the visual distraction and make your website load faster. So a good responsiveness is import to consider when choosing a WordPress theme.

FAST LOADING

A really BIG SHOUT OUT to Carson and all the technical guys behind the scenes at WA for providing us with SiteSpeed. If you do not have it enabled on your website and have not removed any speed enhancing plugins, you are hurting your chances of a good UX on both desktop and mobile.

The faster your website loads on a mobile device, the better your mobile UX will be and the higher Google will rank you for that ranking factor. Using SiteSpeed is the first major step in faster load times. Using the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin that comes with all new websites at WA, also helps a lot.

If you prefer using a different image optimizer plugin, that is fine. Just remember to deactivate EWWW and delete it before installing and activating the new plugin. By optimizing your images, which also include images in the background, header, footer, and sidebar widgets, will help with faster loading.

Wealthy Affiliate also provides us a way to see how each of our pages and posts are ranked for speed when using Google’s PageSpeed Insights. Members at WA do not have to go to the Google tool to see the speed score of their pages and posts. This speed rating tool is built into your SiteManager for each website.

Google also provides another free tool to help determine if your website will load fast enough on a mobile device using the standard and slower 3G mobile network. The image above shows the results of the test I performed today using my LegitimateJobFromHome website.

If a website takes 4 seconds or longer to load on a mobile device, this is a trigger point that tells Google you are not providing a good UX for mobile users. To see how fast your website will load on a mobile device using 3G, click the below link to the Free Google Mobile Speed Loading Tool.

Website Mobile Loading Speed Testing Tool From Google

REMEMBER…

• Make sure that you are choosing a WordPress theme that has a good Responsive Design.
• Make sure you are not using a big image at the beginning of your content forcing your website visitors to scroll down to start reading.
• Make sure your content reads well on a smaller mobile screen by providing a lot of white space.
• Make sure all of your website pages and posts have a GOOD loading speed score by using the SiteSpeed feature here at WA.
• Make sure you are using a good Image Optimizer plugin to help increase the loading speed of your website by optimizing all of your images.
• Make sure your website has a loading speed of less than 4 seconds by using the free Google tool at the link above.

If you will or have implemented all of what I discussed here in this tutorial, your website should be good to go for being Mobile Friendly and causing no major problems with Google’s Mobile-First Indexing. ALL of this will be needed for the new change in SEO that is currently being used right now.

As I had learned the other night from my friend David, one of the senior programmers at Google, this new form of SEO is now functional but still has a little more tweaking to be done before it is fully operational. We will all need to consider doing this if we want to get good across the board rankings.

NOTE: This new form of SEO that I will be discussing in my next tutorial DOES NOT replace what we are learning here at WA. This new SEO is in addition to what we all know. It is not meant to replace the current form of SEO but to rather enhance it for a better UX on mobile and at home.

If you liked this tutorial please show your love by clicking the Green Like This button below. If you have any comments or questions regarding anything I did (or did not) mention here in this tutorial, please leave them below. To view all of my tutorials, click the below link. Thank you for reading this training.

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