Every individual today is addicted to smartphones.
People solely rely on mobiles for web browsing and searching for products online.
It is evident from statistics that, many people make use of smartphones in spite of desktops for surfing the web, purchasing products, and web search.
Mobile SEO has become very important because it assists you to get linked with the specific customer at the right time and right place.
“The BI intelligence’s latest report mentions that by the year 2020, about 3.5 billion smartphones would be dispatched throughout the world.”
This is because many users are switching over to smartphones as their basic device for using the internet.
What is Mobile Optimization:
Many smartphone users use their mobiles to access any site, in this way they obtain an experience optimized for the device. This process is mentioned as a mobile optimization process.
The truth is that each year more and numbers of people spend time on tablets and mobile devices, but still there are many sites which are not adaptable or designed for mobile screens and loading time.
Hence mobile optimization takes an insight into the site structure, design, speed of the page and more so that, mobile visitors aren’t taken away in an unintentional manner.
Mobile friendly:
Any site can be mentioned as mobile friendly when there is no zooming or pinching required when content is presented well, reading is made easy on a small screen.
Finger navigation is easy, is understood in an easy manner by Google, and useful to others.
Mobile SEO Checklist:
Google has announced that they would use mobile readiness of a site as a ranking factor.
Hence mobile search results are to be worked on and mobile optimization is to be fine-tuned.
Google made this move because there were about 89.5 billion mobile searches and smartphones are largely being used these days.
1. Choosing a mobile configuration:
The site is to be configured as many users browse using smartphones.
The configurations need to be set in a manner such that they accommodate multimedia phones, tablets, and other phone features so that they perfectly provide the complete information.
The fact is that 47% of searches are from tablets and 80% from mobile phones, hence all devices are to be configured in a way that no sales or conversation is missed out.
- Google recommends configuring for either a dynamic serving, responsive design or URL’s which are separate.
- Unblocking CSS, image files and Javascript is recommended.
- The configuration is set to indicate for search engines.
- The site speed must be fixed.
- It is to be made sure, all contents are playable.
- App downloads are to be promoted.
- The 404 mobile only errors and poor redirects are to be fixed.
- Configuration for all devices is to be made.
2. Common mistakes in the site must be fixed:
Mobile friendly test tool was released by Google so that developers can find it beneficial.
They can instantly find out and solve issues which hinder the mobile experience. When this tool is successfully used, the site would obtain a mobile-friendly name. The mobile usability report would also be provided which is used to resolve
- Unreadable text which requires zooming.
- Software such as flash for an incompatible mobile device.
- Contents inappropriate to screen size may lead to horizontal scrolling.
- Inadequately spaced buttons and links which leads to poor navigation.
3. App contents provided in search results:
Indexing apps were promoted by Google because about 26% of internet users use apps for their searches.
Apps are indexed with the links in the app similar to websites so that users are provided with enhanced search results.
About 89% of people spend most of their time on media and mostly on apps and hence apps are to be indexed by
- Authenticating the official website of the app on Google play console.
- Deep links are to be added within the app to offer content within the app.
- The deep links on each page are to be linked with the appropriate link on the website or site map.
- Finally checking for errors.
When any website isn’t mobile friendly, then there is a loss of abundant traffic and lead to an enhanced loss.
4. Page speed:
The main ranking factor for Google after 2010 till date is the page speed.
Everyone understands the significance of enhancing the speed of the website for user experience as well as search engines.
Touch events can be utilized instead of click events along with image optimization techniques and other activities.
Few actions which assist in enhancing website page load speed are file compression, or mobile-optimized caching.
Third-party tools such as GTmetrix and Google page speed insights can be utilized to monitor the page speed instantly.
5. Code semantics:
For developers who decide to enrich their content can follow structured data used for mobile.
This is done with Schema.org which makes the content stand out of the rest. Other structured data for mobile are software application mark-up and events micro-data.
6. Evading interstitials:
The actual content of the website is covered completely or partially with overlays and interstitials. This would be a negative impact on the reader either on a desktop or a mobile.
When mobile browsing is considered, with limited space these interstitials can be more irritating.
Such aspects can be avoided by following app indexing or by making use of banner to link to inline of the app with the content of the page.
7. Meta descriptions and titles to be optimized:
When a comparison is made with desktop, mobile browser displays are smaller and hence limited space would be available for Meta descriptions, titles, and URL.
As of now, there is no quick rule about length, as Google is still researching about title tag length for mobiles.
But still when you stick to 320 characters for Meta descriptions and 60 characters for the title, then about 90% of content would be displayed on mobile screens.
8. Accessibility:
Ample resources such as image files, CSS, and scripts are required to be accessed by Googlebot on your page. This is because Google needs to index and render the content in an optimal manner.
By this way, the page ranking in Google search would be affected, hence Google-mobile user agent should access the file and robot.txt file should not avoid it from accessing.
The blocked resources report can be checked by making use of the ‘Fetch as Google” aspect. This would present the resources in your site which are blocked to Googlebot.
Mobile SEO and UX Optimization Techniques:
1. Must do points:
Here are few must do aspects which need to be followed in order to check the mobile SEO checklist.
Being mobile friendly:
To earn a mobile-friendly SEO, the main aspect is to pass Google’s Mobile friendly test. This is a page by page analysis and must be checked for all important pages.
The result would mention all the hindrances which are to be fixed and displays a mobile-friendly green light.
2. Inform search engines about pages formatted for mobiles:
Cues in HTML code are monitored by search engines and they are varied for each mobile configuration.
- The following Meta tag is to be displayed on each web documents head by responsive sites.
This would mention that the page would adapt to all devices.
<meta name=”viewport” content=”width”=device-width, initial scale=1.0”>
- When dynamically served sites are considered, they need to use the Vary HTTP header for every requests response.
- The desktop and mobile sites should hold include<link> tags with rel=”canonical” and rel=”alternate”. These represent the present URL for every page.
Mobile UX optimization:
When mobile SEO strategy is considered, UX or user experience is considered as the key factor for success.
Good mobile design and quick loading site should be used for visitors. Your site ranking is impacted by these aspects as a search engine decides to provide their searchers with an awesome experience.
Here are a few mobile user experience optimization tips.
1. Use PWA’s or AMP:
As already discussed, faster page loading is important for enhanced ranking.
In that manner, another alternative option is to make use of AMP or accelerated mobile pages.
This is a Google’s open source project which is used for making the mobile web quicker. Since the on-page functionality is limited, AMP is not for all sites.
But the good news is that AMP loads quickly for mobile searchers.
In the same way, another technical solution which is to be used for quick mobile pages is PWA or progressive web apps.
2. Mobile site to be simple and easily navigating:
Many people leave the site when they have to reposition the screen or zoom on the mobile screen.
They also get frustrated when paragraphs are too long and never end. These are mentioned to be poor user experiences and hence less is more in mobile.
- The content should possess valuable data
- Should be written with mobile users viewpoint in mind.
- There should be large tap targets and clear points of navigation for easy access.
- A readable and large font which is appropriate for the mobile screen is to be used.
- Should be mobile-friendly
3. Contents should be appropriate for the audience:
The searching aims of a mobile user would vary greatly from that of a desktop user.
For example, a mobile user who hunts for a Chinese food may be looking for a contact number to order the food whereas a desktop user would look for online booking of food.
Hence contents should be designed in a way required for the audience. Also, the mobile site should possess ample content so that you’re assisted with long tail ranking.
4. Mentioning in sound bites:
Phrases and text should be sweet, short and to the mark.
It is to be made catchy for easy to grab by visitors. By this way, readers can easily report and tweet too.
Also, short testimonials from satisfied customers can be included.
The following can be used on the mobile landing page. They are
- Slogans
- Titles
- Action buttons
- Short descriptive phrases
- Bullet points
- Scroll menus.
5. Imagery should speak:
In scenarios of tight space, images are the right choice as they are the best way to represent any message.
The perfect image can speak and have a connection with the visitor which may not have been possible with text on smartphone screens.
Image choosing also has a few tips as mentioned.
- An image should be placed in a manner which lures the attention of an abundant audience by linking with an awesome background.
- It is mandatory to use non-distracting photos.
- For the background or the image, clashing colors or harsh images can be avoided. Colors such as neon yellow are tough to view on the screen and hence can be avoided.
- The background color should not compete with the text, hence the text color should be visible on the background.
- The size of the images for the web should be considered and must be compressed so that viewers enjoy quick loading.
6. Scales:
It is important that your pages scale to the various mobile devices out there.
There are nearly 500 varied screen sizes amongst iPhone, Android, tablets, blackberry, windows and more. For scalability to work
- Your pages should scale to both portrait views as well as landscape.
- Utilizing flash video or code, the site with flash can be avoided.
- HTML 5 can be used for developing a mobile site as it solves many issues with mobile flash.
As time changes, the way people make use of the internet also changes.
With the new era of technology and development, many devices are being introduced from which the internet is to be accessed.
Hence marketers should change their way of thinking. They need to analyze, plan, develop, package and deliver content for visitors in a clear manner.
Also, mobile optimization and user experience are mandatory to concentrate on. The checklist mentioned above for mobile optimization and user experience are beneficial in many ways.
Developers can read through them and make changes in their content to grab in more visitors.