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How to Prepare Digital Documents for the Mobile-First Index: Supporting Gestures & Preventing Errors

In June 2017, Google announced that the earliest time it will implement its updated Mobile-First Index is 2018. Once this major update rolls out, if your desktop website’s content is not present on your mobile website, your academic and/or library website will not appear in Google’s index & search listings. How does the Mobile-First Index impact academic and library websites with a variety of digital documents? How will this affect the mobile user experience (UX)?

In this webinar, search-optimization pioneer and veteran Shari Thurow will debunk common myths & misconceptions about the Mobile-First Index & show you how to prepare different types of digital documents. Mobile user experience applies to people who use a variety of mobile devices. Mobile UX includes findability – how easily mobile users can locate & discover desirable content via browsing, retrieval, & asking. Users browse more often on mobile websites than desktop/laptop websites. Therefore, 4 mobile gestures that ALL websites should accommodate extremely well include:

  • Touch/tap
  • Double tap
  • Scroll
  • Swipe

Additionally, this webinar includes some of the most common mobile errors & how to prevent them, including:

  • Accidental touches
  • Confusing navigation
  • Poor accessibility
  • Ineffective forms

Shari will show you before-&-after examples so you can learn from other mobile-friendly websites. She will also provide you with tools, guidelines, & a downloadable bibliography to help you improve your mobile web presence.

Presenters

Shari Thurow

Shari Thurow is a contributing editor for the ASLIB Journal of Information Management. She also served on the Board of Directors of the Information Architecture Institute (IAI) & the User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA). Shari attended University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign majoring in Library & Information Sciences (LIS) & has worked in multiple academic libraries. She is currently the Founder & SEO Director at Omni Marketing Interactive, a full-service search engine optimization, website usability, information architecture, and UX design firm. Shari has designed and promoted sites since 1995 & is a pioneer in the area of search engine-friendly website design. She is the author of Search Engine Visibility and co-author of When Search Meets Web Usability.