How mobile first is impacting Vodaphone was presented by Nick Wilsdon. Nick is the SEO lead at Vodafone and has 19 years of SEO experience.
Vodafone Started with mobile-friendly initiatives
Vodafone’s early mobile initiatives were:
– They were prompted by mobile traffic tipping point in late 2016
– Vodafone began with deploying a responsive web design
– They retired mobile (m dot) subdomains
– Removed intrusive pop ups and interstitials
– Performance program reduced average load time by -10 secs (Worldwide)
Mobile-first demands entirely new outlook
Mobile-last would be closer to the truth that Vodafone had:
- Degraded experience
- Shoe-horned into development
- Silo-development
Mobile-first is a greater challenge
- Progressively enhanced
- Future-friendly
- Fit for mobile-led markets (ZA)
What factors are influencing mobile-first indexing
What is Google looking for?
- Responsive websites
- HTTPS migrations
- Forcing HTTPS for all users, overcoming header enrichment restrictions
- Low number of technical errors
- Mobile usability
- Page speed
Tips on page speed improvements
Page loading speed is crucial
- High quality, free tools available. No excuses for not running a performance program
- Lighthouse 3.0 released in May
- Sitespeed.io allows you to set up free hosted performance suite
- HTTP/2 can be set up through most major CDNs
Vodafone’s quick wins with AMP
Considerable success with AMP
- Vodafone used this across product pages
- Initial deployments gave them 27%+ increase in traffic and 12% decrease in abandonment rates
- 65% increase in conversion for AMP journeys vs non-AMP journeys
- They won the Drum award for iPhone 8/X launch
- However, AMP should be deployed alongside a comprehensive performance program.
Progressive web apps (PWA)
Huge shift towards progressive web apps (PWAs) this will be seismic change for SEOs:
- iOS 11.3 and macOS 10.13.4 (launched out of beta in March) supported PWA
- Google announced desktop progressive apps at I/O 2018
- Renewed push from developers for Javascript frameworks (React PWA Support)
Mobile-first to Data-first with API development
API access to data is key
- Deployed Alexa Skill for pay monthly customers but still need to open PAYG accounts
- Ongoing efforts to deliver store location API data, delivered through 3rd party partners
- Like mobile-first, requires significant changes to enable secure, fast, data delivery via API
Final Insights
- Mobile-first is a business wide challenge
- Page speed is crucially important in 2018 – you need a performance program
- AMP is a successful quick-fix and can be used on all page types
- Start preparing for PWA development
- Open data via APIs for competitive advantage
