Mobile device usage has grown exponentially in the last decade, with Statista data showing three billion smartphone users worldwide as of 2021.
When it comes to marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO), we're told to always be on the lookout for trends and innovations that can help us reach our goals. Mobile SEO is one of those trends that presents both opportunities and challenges. The question is, how can you optimise your website content effectively?
The ultimate guide to boosting mobile SEO is here. There are 7 important factors that influence your mobile rankings, so it's important to ensure everything you do on your site is geared towards getting the best possible mobile ranking.
Saying Mobile SEO is important is an understatement.
Mobile SEO is fast becoming one of the most important aspects of search engine optimisation. As of 2016, there are more searches happening on mobile devices than desktop computers. That's not just a trend in the United States, it's true worldwide.
Mobile optimisation refers to the process of building your website so that it looks and performs well on mobile devices. There are several components to mobile optimization: Your site should load quickly and efficiently on any device
Your website pages should render properly on an array of screen sizes without breaking or rearranging content and your website should be easy to navigate
The whole point of this is to make sure people stick around when they get to your site. If it doesn't look good or behave how they expect, people will bounce and go back to Google and click someone else's result instead.
Businesses risk losing valuable customers and leads, and ultimately revenue by not creating a mobile site that is optimised for both desktop and mobile devices.
With users now spending 70% of their time on their mobile devices browsing the internet, site owners need to ensure their pages are optimised for both smartphones and tablets.
By creating a mobile-friendly site, businesses will ensure their users have an enjoyable experience while browsing the web, decreasing bounce rates and increasing return visits.
Businesses that fail to improve their mobile optimisation risk losing valuable customers and leads, and ultimately revenue.
Want to know if your site is mobile-friendly?
It's a good idea to check how mobile-friendly your website is before you start investing in digital marketing.
Google has a great mobile-friendly test that you can use to get started: just type your URL into the search box, and Google will let you know whether your site is mobile-friendly or not. It will also tell you if there are any specific areas of improvement for your site, like resources that might be blocked or redirected.
You've probably heard of Google Search Console but if not, it's a great tool to help get your content found through search engines and it's totally free!
The first thing you'll want to do is check whether your site is crawlable by search engines. “Crawling” is how search engines find and index your content. If your content can’t be crawled it won’t show up in search engine results.
Once you verify that your site is crawlable, you can start using all the other features of Google Search Console! You'll also be able to see any errors that may be affecting your site's performance, so you know when and where to focus your efforts.
Best practices for Mobile SEO.
If you haven't been ticking off these best practices with your site, you've probably noticed your rankings drop on Google.
First things first: Create a seamless user experience on mobile devices. This starts with a responsive website design—one that adapts to the user's device and screen size automatically. But there are other elements too, like the menu design and calls to action, which all contribute to the user experience.
Second: Show the same content from your desktop site on your mobile site. Hiding content from mobile users is no longer tolerated by Google.
Third: Make sure Google bots can crawl and index all of your content formats—whether text, images or video—on mobile. This means you should be using image alt tags and meta titles and meta descriptions and meta tags to their full potential.
Fourth: While 62 % of marketers currently state they have no plans to implement a voice search SEO strategy, optimizing for voice search could put your business at a significant advantage when it comes to search rankings, particularly when it comes to local searches.
People perform voice searches from their mobiles, so as voice search grows, you need to optimise your mobile site for voice search. This means rethinking your keyword strategy to better focus on long-form keywords and questions.
Last but not least: Google's made it official: page speed is the name of the game, and they're not playing around. So when it comes to page load speed, the faster your site loads, the better. If you want to show up in search results, it's best to keep your load speed under 3 seconds.
Conclusion.
The best way to get the highest ranking for your mobile SEO is to use an SEO-friendly website template. You can spin your content using its drag and drop system, and the templates carry out to adjust the keywords automatically with each spin. They also allow you to make micro-changes without digging deep into code which can slow you down.