- 1. What is Mobile-Friendly SEO?
- 2. Does Mobile Friendliness Matter for SEO?
- 3. What are The Consequences of Your Website Not Being Mobile Friendly?
- 4. How To Check if You Have a Mobile-Friendly Website?
- 5. What is Mobile Optimisation?
- 6. What are The Best Practices of Mobile SEO?
- 7. How Can Markethinkers Help You With Mobile Friendly SEO?
What is Mobile-Friendly SEO?
Mobile devices are becoming a very important aspect of the development of websites and SEO. As mobile devices become smarter and more capable of functioning like any PC, it is important that websites take mobile site visits into consideration when they structure and create the website itself. Being able to view and use a website on a mobile device as well as one could on any PC refers to a website being mobile-friendly! Mobile SEO is the tactic that website developers need to take into consideration when creating mobile-friendly websites, and implementing these SEO features will help to improve where a website ranks on Google.
As mobile devices are becoming more popular, and more users are using these devices to search on search engines, ensuring that your website will function optimally on these devices is extremely important. Websites that are not designed with mobile SEO in mind, will have many issues when users use the website on mobile devices. Pages will not load correctly, image sizes will be incorrect and the overall user experience will be impacted. To avoid this, mobile SEO should be considered when creating your website.
Does Mobile Friendliness Matter for SEO?
Mobile SEO is only getting more and more important, with every new release of the latest smartphone and tablet, people are more often using their mobile devices to search on the internet. With easy access and quick searches, mobile and tablet devices are changing the way that people use search engines, and with these changes, search engines themselves are changing too! The following is an outline of the reasons why mobile SEO is becoming so important to consider when developing and updating websites!
Mobile Search Is on the Rise
As mobile devices become the more popular way to do online searches, it is becoming more and more important that your business moves with the times! The use of mobile phones for search is on the rise, with many more people completing searches from their phones and tablets than ever before, and this is only going to grow! Mobile devices can be used anywhere and at any time, making them the easiest way for people to do searches, particularly if they have a tablet! With mobile search on the rise, it is becoming more important than ever that you take this into consideration and continue to grow your business using mobile-friendly SEO tactics.
Mobile Content Determines Google Search Ranking
With mobile search being on the rise, Google has added specific algorithms that put preference on websites that have been optimised for mobile SEO features, ensuring that websites that have mobile SEO features will rank higher than those who do not, even if you are searching on a PC. Google and other search engines take mobile optimisation very seriously, and the best way to ensure that you are ranking as high as possible is to make sure that your website is mobile-friendly!
Mobile Search Drives Sales
Mobile-friendly sites are much faster to load on mobile devices and therefore they increase your chance of making a sale and decrease the bounce rate on your mobile website. When content and website features are specifically designed to be used on mobile devices, the amount of time that it takes for a page to load is much less than pages that are not optimised with these features. If a page loads quickly and a user is able to easily navigate through a site, you are far more likely to make a sale and gain a user’s trust than if the page is not functioning and loading quickly!
Mobile SEO Affects Voice Search
With voice search becoming a more common way for people to search on their smartphone and tablet devices, it is important to optimise your website for this type of search. Voice search is becoming a much easier and much faster way for users to search on search engines, and it is being used more than it ever has before. In order to ensure that your website is properly optimised for voice search, you need to ensure that it is mobile-friendly, as this will ensure you are ranked as highly as possible on search engines.
What are The Consequences of Your Website Not Being Mobile Friendly?
If your website is not optimised for mobile SEO, there are many consequences that could impact not just the ranking and placement of your page on search engines but also the overall user experience. If web pages are not optimised for mobile SEO, they are slower and structured incorrectly, with content and images too large for the smaller screens that data is displayed on when using mobile devices. Increasing your page load speed and correctly sizing and structuring content for mobile use is incredibly important and can increase the performance of your website and the better the experiences that users have on your page when using mobile devices.
Mobile optimization in SEO is becoming one of the highest-ranking factors to consider when it comes to search engine optimization, and having a website that is not mobile-friendly will impact your rankings. Search engines are realising the importance of mobile devices, and with more and more people from all over the world opting to rather do searches on their mobile devices, mobile-friendliness is an important ranking factor. If your website is not optimised for mobile SEO, this will impact your rankings, lowering them and making it harder for users to find you, even if you have relevant information.
How To Check if You Have a Mobile-Friendly Website?
SemRush
SemRush is an incredibly handy marketing tool that can provide users with a ton of vital information about the functioning and effectiveness of their website! One of the most useful tools for those looking to analyse their mobile SEO is the SemRush overview tool. This tool is either able to analyse desktop data or mobile data, offering users the chance to see whether or not their mobile SEO is up to scratch!
PageSpeed Insights
Like SemRush, PageSpeed Insights is also able to switch between mobile and desktop data, analysing whether or not your website is mobile-friendly. This tool will actually show you a screenshot of your mobile page, allowing you to see if any information is not presented well or cut off on the mobile page. It also provides you with vital information about the mobile features that may need to be optimised and adjusted on your website.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console provides its users with a Mobile Usability report which reports back if any of your web pages have any issues on your mobile site. This tool provides you with a ton of information on how you can better your mobile site and informs you of the different aspects that need attention.
Google Mobile-Friendly Test
The mobile SEO test supplied by Google is a great way to check the effectiveness of your mobile site, it will inform you of the issues surrounding your mobile site and the different elements that need to be addressed. As a Google program, it takes Google’s algorithms into account when analysing your mobile data, ensuring that all of the different elements that Google thinks are important are checked!
Use Your Mobile Phone
Another great way to check whether or not your website is mobile-friendly is by investigating what your users will experience yourself. Using your phone and a search engine, you can look to see how the features on your website present themselves to users who visit from a mobile device. If your page loads quickly, your images present properly and your site is easy to navigate on a mobile device, your site is more than likely configured for mobile use.
What is Mobile Optimisation?
Mobile optimization is the process of using specific features and implementing strategies that ensure that visitors who come to your site using mobile devices have just as good of an experience as if they were using a PC. Mobile optimisation takes many different things into account, including site design, site structure, page speed, and more! In order for your brand or business to remain relevant and be placed high on search engine results pages, users need to be able to access a well-structured page no matter what type of device they are using, be it a PC or a mobile device. There are different tactics and practices that can help you implement to help ensure that your website is properly optimised, all of which will be discussed next!
What are The Best Practices of Mobile SEO?
Improve Your Websites Page Speed
The amount of time that it takes for your page to load can drastically change the experience that users have on your site. If pages take too long to load, you may find an increase in the bounce rate of your website, meaning that users are leaving your site without properly looking at what you have to offer. When things, like images or content, are loaded onto a website for only PC devices, images and content can often be too large for mobile devices. This drastically slows down the page load speed and decreases the performance and user experience.
Don’t Block CSS, Javascript, Or Images
As mobile devices have become smarter and more capable, certain older functions that could not be carried out and were blocked on mobile sites are now actually hurting your mobile SEO. CSS, Javascript, and Images help Google to better understand your content and can therefore rank you for more searches, so if you had these elements blocked in the past, it is important that you take the necessary actions to unblock them.
Site Design For Mobile
Mobile websites may be getting smarter, but it still does not mean that they can function in the same way as PC devices. Things like using Flash, pop-ups and small tabs for users to click on are design flaws that could negatively affect a user’s experience with your webpage and it is important that these are avoided!
Optimise Titles And Meta Descriptions
Optimising your title and meta descriptions for mobile use is incredibly important. Optimising for meta descriptions and titles will mean that users will be able to see and understand what your website is about on search engine results pages even if they are using mobile devices. Mobile screens are a lot smaller and they, therefore, limit the number of words used on them, and many website developments and creators do not take this into consideration when creating meta descriptions and titles. With viewers not having full access to the information that is used for these meta descriptions and titles, they will not understand or know what your page is about and they may just skip on the next results because of this.
Optimise For Local Search
Location can be extremely important when it comes to mobile SEO and optimising for local searches can help your business attract the right customers. This is especially true when it comes to mobile SEO, as people from different areas may be using their phones as a way to find goods and services in a new area! For example, if you are on holiday and are not sure where the best place to eat out is, you would generally pull out your phone and do a Google search. Businesses that are optimised for local searches will pop up first as opposed to those who are not optimised for local searches.
Mobile Site Configuration
You will have to decide whether to use responsive, dynamic serving, or separate site configuration. While search engines generally prefer that mobile sites use responsive site configuration, as long as it is set up properly, you can generally use any one of the above!
Responsive Web Design
Sizing is extremely important when it comes to mobile SEO, and ensuring that you have a responsive web design that can change the sizing of your content according to the size of the screen a user is using is imperative!
How Can Markethinkers Help You With Mobile Friendly SEO?
As an agency that specifically looks into the development of SEO and implementation of SEO tactics across a website, mobile SEO and friendliness is something that we here at markethinkers know and understand very well. Having a mobile SEO strategy can help to identify adjustments that may need to be made across your website and give you insight into the best additions and features that can help your business to grow. With mobile SEO tips and tricks to help get you started in developing mobile-friendly websites, Markethinkers can help you to achieve your short and long term goals and aspirations, ensuring that whoever visits your website, on whatever device, will have a great experience! Mobile optimization in SEO is extremely important and our professional SEO consulting and SEO copywriting experts are here with you to help in any way we can! For more information, do not hesitate to contact us!