Introduction to Mobile SEO
Mobile SEO meaning is the practice of optimizing your website so that users can easily view it on their smartphones as well as tablets. It makes it easier for search engine spiders to crawl your website as well. Google favors mobile-friendly sites over the rest.
Optimization for the mobile includes the site design, structure of the site, page speed, etc. to make sure that every user has the best site experience on their mobile phones.
Benefits & Importance of Mobile SEO
Wondering why mobile SEO is so important? Well, there are multiple benefits of mobile SEO that we have listed below –
- Generating Increased Traffic – With mobile search, you have the opportunity to generate more traffic on your website. Since many users use mobile phones, it is good to leverage this.
- More Conversions – With increased traffic and good content there are quality leads landing on your page. This automatically leads to increased conversions which is the end goal for any business.
- Faster Load Time – With a faster load time, you are ensuring that users stay on your page for a longer time. This helps with Google rankings as well.
- Decreased Bounce Rate – Bounce rate is a factor that Google takes into consideration whilst rankings your website. With a decreased bounce rate, you will be able to rank on search engines.
- Improves Overall User Experience – Adhering to all these mobile optimization practices, you would improve the overall user experience of your website.
- Mobile SEO drives revenue – Did you know that over 40% of sales online happen through mobile devices? That is a huge number in itself for you to invest in mobile SEO.
- Voice Search Optimization – Voice search optimization is a great way to bring in some additional web traffic.
Mobile SEO Strategies & Checklist
In order to fully optimize your SEO game, you need a mobile SEO strategy in place.
We’ve listed a few mobile SEO techniques in the form of a checklist –
- Use analytics tools such as Google Analytics to understand how much traffic you are receiving from different devices. We recommend this Google Analytics short course for anybody looking to understand the space better.
- Test your page if it is mobile-friendly with tools such as Google Mobile-Friendly Test
- Monitor website traffic with Google Search Console for clicks, click-through rates, and impressions
- Check for any crawl errors and correct them as soon as possible
- Do a speed test. Identify how long it takes to load your site on mobile and fix any issues that are present
- If your site is not responsive, try using a responsive theme from a website builder or get a developer to update the website code
- All mobile pop-ups should add value and should be absolutely necessary
- Your content needs to be optimized for mobile
- Conduct a thorough mobile search keywords research. Check out how to do keyword research here.
- Optimize site structure and navigation
- Your metadata such as meta titles and meta descriptions need to be optimized
- Implement the best mobile UX design practices
Make sure to keep this mobile optimization checklist handy with you! To understand SEO better, we recommend that you enroll in this short online SEO course.
Mobile SEO Best Practices
Listed below are some of the mobile SEO best practices that you should be following as a thumb rule for a good user experience –
1. Loads easily
Your website should load easily on tablets and phones. It should load effectively without any glitches.
2. Holistic Approach
Optimize both your desktop and mobile SEO strategies and make them work together for a better experience.
3. Fast Load Time
Ideally, it should not take more than 3 seconds to load as users these days do not have the patience to wait for a longer load time.
4. Mobile Pop-ups
Avoid any kind of mobile pop-ups as they can be perceived as spam by users and annoy them.
5. Large Font
Ensure that the font is sufficiently big enough to be read on smaller devices
6. User-friendly navigation
Your website navigation needs to be simple and uncomplicated with a well-structured user interface.
7. Screen size
Your design needs to be fitted to the screen.
8. CTA buttons
Make sure that your CTA buttons are easy to use and click on.
Mobile SEO Tools & Checkers
We have consolidated a list below with mobile SEO tools and checkers –
Through Google Analytics, one of the most popular tools on the internet, you can identify which devices are working well for you and which pages you need to optimize. You can also understand what kind of content is working well for you.
Our Mobile Planet is a tool by Google that allows users to understand more about your potential client base and their demographics. You can also view how users have changed from 2021 to 2022 in terms of user behavior.
With so many options to choose from for mobile testing, Google’s mobile meter is one of the best tools to test how your site is performing on mobile.
You can use Google Adwords to drive users to your website. It also offers location targeting and includes phone numbers in ads.
You can use Google Sites to build a mobile landing page. This is perfect if you don’t have the time or even the budget to build a mobile-optimized site. It is also useful for mocks and testing purposes.
Google Webmaster is a good tool to check for any site performance issues and low search results. It helps to identify the problem.
Google Pagespeed Insights
It is perfect for mobile as well as desktop optimization. Google PageSpeed enables website improvements and increased download speed. This helps search rankings.
