PAGE 1 – Is the use of a mobile device more popular than a computer?
PAGE 2 – How do people worldwide access the internet?
PAGE 3 – Google now uses Mobile-First Indexing. What you need to do.
PAGE 4 – How to know if your website speed is fast enough for Google
Recently I got to sit down with my friend from California here in the New York City area, who is a senior programmer at Google. Naturally I had to ask him some questions about how I could improve my website SEO. Some of what he told me I already knew and there were somethings I did not know.
In this training tutorial I will discuss what I already knew that many of you may not have known. It is important to know this because it will tie into the next training I will be posting in a couple of weeks that talks about the NEW SEO strategy for 2018 and beyond.
DO YOU USE A MOBILE DEVICE TO GO ONLINE?
It is pretty safe to say that now in mid-2018, practically half of the population that have access to the internet are getting access via a mobile device. According to Google when the word “Mobile” is used, it is in reference to a smartphone, not a tablet or a laptop.
As we can see in the above image, from June 2017 to June 2018 there are more people using a mobile smartphone than there are people using a desktop computer. Laptop computers are also considered as desktop in the majority of ratings. Surprisingly tablets are not used as much.
The above graph shows that the majority of the population worldwide use a smartphone for their computing and web surfing needs. It is amazing how fast technology has advanced in the past 18 years. Smartphones are not phones. They are computers with the ability to make and receive calls.
Back in January 2015 Google recorded for the first time that searches were being done more from smartphones than from desktop/laptop computers. This was a trend that was only going to increase. Knowing this Google required all websites to be Mobile Friendly by April 21, 2015.
NEXT UP = The majority of your website readers are probably using a smartphone.
So, my mobile traffic dropped by 50% or more over night a couple of days ago. But had weirdly doubled in the month previous. Desktop stayed basically remained the same.
Why do you think this is? I've been working the last couple of days to improve my site for mobile. I can only presume this has happened do to the mobile-first indexing that Google introduced? This didn't happen to me until a few days ago though. :(
Reply
I would think that your drop has to do with many of the mobile optimization ranking factors. I know my website rankings dropped too shortly after mobile first indexing. I am now optimizing my website for mobile more than it was before.
I had a background image of a blue sky on my website and the only way I could get my website to perform faster was to get rid of that background image.
Do you have any of the recommended image optimization plugins installed on your website? WA is now pre-installing the EWWW Image Optimization plugin with all websites.
If your website was created prior to June 2017 like mine was, you will have to install and activate this plugin. Then have it search your website and optimize all images and widgets.
Yes I installed this plugin- so hopefully that’s helping get somewhat anyway.
I think it’s just a few of my posts that actually lost rankings, but unfortunately some where I was getting the most traffic. Hopefully I can claw my way back lol.
Thanks for your help!
Nat
It is kind of a long process, depending on how many pages and posts you have, but eventually you should see results of your efforts. I know we all wish it could be quicker in better results, but Google works at their own somewhat slow pace.
All the best to you in this endeavor.
Thanks!!! Nat
According to PageSpeed Insights anything over 86 is a good speed.
If your speeds are in the 60s and 70s you will need more speed.
Do you have the SiteSpeed Accelerated activated on your website? Judging by your current speeds I would guess that you don't.
I highly recommend SiteSpeed. What Carson and the tech guys at WA created here is an awesome way to increase our website speed and thus our Google rankings.
Yes 400 lol, it is a lot. I also have the site accelerated speed switched on - it doesn’t appear to have made any difference to my mobile speed.
My desktop speed is very good generally - but not mobile. And I’m just about to launch with mediavine so, I guess that could slow things down further.
I’m unaure what else to do from here :/
I would suggest that you do not hold your breath for the release of my next tutorial. You will turn blue and pass out. lol
Seeing how that information is even new to me, and I have to make sure the notes I took at dinner the other night make sense, it will most likely be a couple weeks before I publish that one.
This is very helpful information. I knew that smartphone use was increasing but I didn't think it was that popular yet.
Tried and True
Elaine
This is why Google now ranks us based on how well our websites perform on the smaller screens of mobile devices.
Maybe I missed this, but you can also see how your web site does
using this Google tool
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
Will give you an idea of mobile and desktop performance
As I stated in the above tutorial, WA already has this Google PageSpeed Insights tool fully intergrated into the Site Manager for each of our websites.
WA members do not need to go to Google to access the testing tool. They only need to go into their SitePlus Details section in Site Manager and can easily test every page and post on their website.
