With global mobile traffic accounting for about 10% of the total internet traffic, search engines, particularly Google, are taking steps to make the internet more mobile-friendly. One factor that is contributing to this effort is mobile indexing. Mobile indexing basically means that mobile-optimized sites are now the first thing Google includes in its index. But what exactly does this mean for SEO tactics?

Well for starters, sites that are not optimized for mobile could see a negative impact on rankings. So if you don’t have a good mobile site, you may want to consider working on that. While mobile features aren’t the only factor considered, it’s definitely a contributing factor to how well a site ranks. And if a site isn’t optimized for mobile, it may see a decrease in traffic anyways due to so many people skipping over non mobile friendly websites.

But if a site is responsive in both desktop and mobile modes, the mobile indexing may have little to no effect on the site rankings. However, there are a few important things that should be considered. First, page speed and load time should be a priority, especially for mobile pages. Second, visuals need to be correctly optimized for a mobile friendly website design. And lastly, you don’t need to worry about different tabs of content with mobile indexing, because all content will be treated the same.

With that being said, if you have two different sites for desktop and mobile use, there are a few local SEO considerations to keep in mind:

• High-quality content creation should be a priority
• Host servers should be adjusted to handle the new crawl rate
• Meta description should be similar for desktop and mobile content
• Your sites should be responsive across all platforms
• Ensure there is a mobile URL for mobile site use

With the right SEO service, you’ll be able to ensure your site won’t be negatively impacted by mobile indexing. Overall, if your site is optimized well for mobile use, you won’t have much to worry about — but it’s important to remember that with mobile indexing, your mobile site will be considered first when rankings are determined. So if you’ve fallen behind on mobile optimization, now is the time to catch up.

The way Google chooses rankings is always changing, which is both a good and bad thing. But if you have the right SEO service, your sites are sure to be in good shape, even with the changes mobile indexing is making.