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Mobile Web Mobile First, the best for SEO 2021

By M. Soutto

mobile web mobile first
Mobile Web Mobile First, the best for SEO 2021

Mobile web Mobile First refers to a web page that has been optimized for devices with small and touch screens, such as the smartphones you usually use, the result is a light and fast web page with that focuses on what matters, the content you want to display to your audience. This will also help you in your SEO positioning, as this year 2021 will not be any different, in May Google is going to increase the value it gives to being Mobile Web Mobile First, the best for SEO 2021.

Explaining what a mobile web is and why it is so interesting to have a Mobile First mobile web page, is the objective of this article.

What is a Mobile First website?

When we talk about 'Mobile first' we are refering to a web design that thinks of the experience on mobile devices first.

Designing a website to be Mobile First and also Mobile Friendly leads us to reduce the code to the bare minimum and the content to just the necessary.

In one of our earlier posts we explained about Responsive web design. What is it? and how does it work on mobile?, we talked about how everything is progressing very quickly with the evolution of technology and that a few years ago responsive web design was joined by a new way of designing and programming, thinking 'Mobile First' and then we think about computers, but also Mobile Friendly.

Mobile Website also Mobile Friendly

Before continuing, we must clarify that a Mobile First, and Mobile Friendly, web page is not just a web page that loads on your mobile, this does not qualify it directly as a mobile website.

In the image:

  • Correct on the left a mobile web mobile first.
  • Incorrect on the right it is NOT a mobile web mobile first.
mobile web mobile first
Image of how a mobile website SHOULD look like on the left and how a mobile website SHOULD NOT look like on the right.

When you visit a website and compare what you see with the previous image, the correct mobile website is the one that looks like the left of the image. The image on the right is NOT a mobile website, it is a website for desktop computers and you will have to zoom in on the text and all the elements of the web page to be able to use it on your mobile. This is not what a mobile web user expects to find and a web page should never look like this on a mobile device.

A mobile web that is Mobile first implies that we first think of a web architecture with the least possible number of code and elements, we must focus the content on what is important or relevant, in order to reduce all the elements to the essential and necessary.

In the early days of web design, during the creative process of a website, the making of the flowchart and representative sketches of a web design were thought out for large-screen devices such as desktops and laptops. When mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, came into the internet scene with such a strong growth, it became necessary to prioritize browsing on mobile devices and to create a web structure with mobile devices in mind first and devices with larger screens such as computers second.

For years, most web teams have designed products and information for desktops and laptops. For these teams, the mobile was an afterthought, if ever an idea. Unfortunately, this approach made sense in many parts of the world for quite some time.

Book 'Mobile First' by Luke Wroblewski

Why is a mobile website faster?

Due to the fact that it is necessary to reduce and optimize the content and the code we use, we are using a light, clean and very specific code, both the HTML, PHP, CSS and JavaScript code. As a result we only use the necessary code and we value the size of each file very much, as each kilobite (kb) counts.

And of course the images, video, audio and any other multimedia file has to be optimized for the mobile web.

How does a Mobile first mobile website work?

As we have also mentioned in this blog, optimization for mobile devices is one of the SEO trends also in 2021.

When we use search engines from a mobile device, we as users expect the best results to display on our mobile screen. This mobile search action has surpassed desktop computer searches by a long way, which is why Google has adapted its algorithms to this usage pattern and has developed metrics that check many indicators to see if a web page gives a good experience to mobile device users, for example if the size of the text is adequate, the size of the buttons are appropriate so that it they have a sufficient area to be pressed by a finger, and how fast the page loads is also very important.

Recommendation

When it comes to searching on mobile devices, users should get the most relevant and timely results, regardless of whether the information is found on web pages or mobile-friendly applications. As more people use mobile devices to access the Internet, our algorithms must adapt to these usage patterns.

Google Search Center

Does a mobile web improve positioning?

We must first know how did this start? It was when Google decided to change its algorithm to first assess whether the web had a mobile web that is Mobile First or a mobile web that is Mobile Friendly.

If your website is Mobile First, then, you will have a good position in the search engine results, this means a better score for the SERP ranking (means Search Engine Results Page) or Google ranking.

Our answer is YES a mobile web improves positioning, and in this article we have explained why.

Should I have a mobile web, mobile first website?

If you think that you have a large audience visiting your website and it is not a mobile friendly website, then you should get one as soon as possible.

In the year 2020 in Spain, 93.2% of the population aged 16 to 74 have used the Internet in the last three months, 2.5 points more than in 2019. This represents a total of 32.8 million users 1

Population using the Internet INE

Yes, there are many millions of users who have a mobile phone in their hand and must have an excellent experience when they visit your Mobile Web Mobile First, the best for SEO 2021.

mobile web mobile first
Types of mobile devices used to access the Internet in 2020 2
mobile web mobile first

And now compare the data that appears in the histogram of the image 'Types of mobile devices used to access the Internet in 2020', each bar you see is proportional to the frequency of the values represented. It gives us a good overview of the type of devices that have been used in the past year, the mobile phone wins easily over other devices.

Therefore, as a result of all that we have seen, we think that having a mobile web is essential either when you are going to start an online business or if you do not want to lose users.

Conclusion

Having seen all the benefits that having a website that is mobile and designed mobile first can provide us, we must ensure that our website is optimized for mobile devices, so that it is easy to read and also loads quickly, in order to achieve good speed and a good PageSpeed. If we browse with a mobile phone on a Mobile First website, we will immediately notice all these advantages.

One of the advantages that can be added to the list is that it saves on data transfer, therefore it will be cheaper for the user of your website to use load your web page, another good reason why browsing your mobile website will encourage them to do so.

A mobile first mobile web, gives us the opportunity to continue growing, although we will have to limit ourselves to the elements that make up the web design, it makes us focus on what is important with which we improve our approach and on the other hand it enables us to innovate with structures, codes, programming languages and much more.

A few months ago we could read headlines that indicated that web traffic had increased by 8% in 2019 driven by mobile phones. But in 2021 mobile devices are the main channel of our daily activities and the confinement due to Covid-19 has caused the time we use our mobile device from home to increase to more than 40%.

The growth of the mobile web has outpaced the growth of the desktop web by far and global mobile data traffic has grown tremendously in recent years .

The increase in Mobile First use is evident in 3 large areas on the internet:

  • Online commerce
  • Social networks
  • Productivity and media

Each web project is different and we always study the best possibilities to develop your website so that it is a mobile website with a Mobile First design but does not leave out desktop computers. The important thing is that the user has an excellent experience on your website. Tell us about your project.

Sources

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Categories: SEO positioning

Tags: web design, marketing, mobile web, Mobile First, Mobile Friendly