March 2021 is the deadline that Google announced for the final transition to Mobile First Indexing.
Big G has been scanning websites with priority being given to the mobile Googlebot for some time now, but as of this date, as announced by John Mueller, Google's Search Advocate, it will be using this system exclusively, thus eliminating everything only found on the website's desktop version from the SERPs (Search Results Pages).
Basically, everything that you want to be indexed by the search engine will have to be present on the mobile version of the website.
The switch to mobile first indexing, however, is only an intermediate step: the switch to mobile only will take place in the future.
Google’s decision comes in the wake of the digital market’s evolution.
Internet usage from mobile and tablet devices surpassed desktop usage worldwide for the first time in October 2016. Today, according to a study conducted by We are social and Hootsuite, there are 4.32 billion mobile internet users (92.6% of the total), and they spend an average of 3 hours and 39 minutes online each day.
The prevalence of mobile is also growing in the field of e-commerce.
Not only do three quarters of internet users make purchases online each month, but 55.4% of them purchase products or services directly from their smartphones.
Naturally there are still those who prefer to make purchases through various channels (physical stores, apps, or desktop websites), but traffic from smartphones is on the rise, even in the tourism sector, and certainly should not be neglected.
Also because, as Deloitte has demonstrated, better mobile performance increases the likelihood of conversion in the Travel sector. Every millisecond is important: with a 0.1 second increase in website speed, the user is not only more inclined to continue browsing and visit more pages, but, above all, more frequently completes their purchase (the conversion rates are up 10%, and the average order value is up 2%).
Preparing your hotel’s website for the final transition to Mobile first indexing is essential.
Here are 3 tips to determine whether you’re ready and to take action in time:
Mobile website speed is fundamental: a slow website generates frustration, causing the user to abandon the page and refrain from making a purchase.
It is also important to examine issues of a more technical nature, such as robots.txt syntax and compliance with Core Web Vitals, and to optimise any elements that might slow the website down, such as large images.
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