Mobile SEO: Optimizing Your Website for Mobile Users

Concentrating your website efforts toward the desktop experience used to make sense. Back in 2009 when smartphone technology was in its infancy and BlackBerries reigned supreme, more than 99% of website traffic originated on desktop computers. But mobile technology improved rapidly, and today around 63% of website traffic comes from mobile devices.

And speaking of BlackBerry, if there’s one lesson businesses can take away from the rapid nosedive the legendary company took from the height of its market dominance, it’s that you can’t ignore market changes. If you want your business to stay competitive, you need to pay attention to trends and meet your customers where they are today — not where they were in the past.

Mobile SEO puts customers first

Unlike beginning of the century Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices that relied on heavy-handed factors to determine what websites appeared first in search results, mobile SEO focuses on the user experience.

Optimizing your website for mobile means bringing the various components of the website together to create a seamless experience on smartphones and tablets. It starts with understanding how and why mobile users’ behaviors tend to differ from desktop users’ behaviors and includes technical performance and a revised approach to content.

As always, Google has stayed on top of this change and now prioritizes mobile-first indexing, making the mobile version of your site the primary version used for indexing and ranking. So if you want your website to achieve a better position on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), make sure it delivers what mobile visitors are looking for.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll look at what makes mobile traffic different from desktop traffic, break down the factors that make a website mobile friendly, and show you how your business can stay ahead in today’s market.

Why mobile SEO matters

Like any good marketing approach, mobile SEO focuses on the needs of your customers and meets them where they are, how and when they’re most receptive. Your website is your most important marketing tool, and optimizing it for mobile can have far-reaching effects due to:

• The percentage of mobile traffic. Currently, over 60% of global web traffic comes from mobile devices, and those visitors are accustomed to finding what they want quickly and efficiently. If your website is slow, dated or difficult to navigate on their devices, they’ll rapidly lose interest and move on.
• Google’s mobile-first indexing. Optimization is essential now that Google is considering the mobile version of your site first for ranking on SERPs. Bonus — there’s also an opportunity to get ahead of businesses that haven’t yet prioritized mobile users.
• Better connection with visitors: Having a mobile-friendly website not only improves user experience but also keeps visitors engaged longer, reducing bounce rates and making them more likely to convert.

The key components of mobile SEO

Mobile optimization helps reduce bounce rates, increase engagement and maintain a consistent user experience across all devices. In order to accomplish this, key factors need to be considered, including:

Responsive design

A responsive web design automatically adjusts your website’s layout and content to fit the screen size of the device where it’s being viewed. Images should be easy to see without meaningful cropping, and text should be easily readable without requiring visitors to zoom in.

Page speed optimization

Today’s visitors expect pages to load in just a few seconds. Anything that takes longer may cause them to give up and go to another website. Some ways to increase page speed are:

• Compressing images
• Enabling browser caching
• Minimizing redirects
• Using less JavaScript
• Using Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

Mobile-friendly content

Mobile users are on the go and tend to respond better to easily consumable content. Larger fonts, shorter paragraphs, and easy to click buttons can make your site more accessible to these smaller-screen visitors.

Mobile SEO best practices

Today’s mobile SEO best practices are developed through a combination of search engine updates and trial and error, guided by the experience of experienced SEO professionals. If you want the best results in terms of search engine ranking and conversions, it’s advisable to follow the practices that top-ranking sites follow.

These best practices include:

• Optimizing for touchscreens: Small text and links frustrate mobile users, forcing them to pinch to zoom when they can’t read content or tap links. Using larger, readable text and buttons that aren’t too close together make it easier for users to navigate your website.
• Using structured data: When search engines have a better understanding of your content, your website has more opportunities for visibility in mobile search results and in voice searches. Structured data also reduces the need for in-depth crawling and parsing, speeding up page load times.
• Prioritizing content above the fold: Can you fit your most important messaging on a space the size of a mobile screen? That’s the most your visitors will see without scrolling. It’s a significantly smaller space than what you get on desktop, so the more concise you can be, the better.
• Avoiding pop-ups: Pop-ups can interrupt the user experience, frustrating users, and possibly affecting your ranking on SERPs. If you can’t avoid using pop-ups, make sure visitors can easily close them to resume reading.
• Testing early and often: Mobile SEO is an ongoing process that needs to continually evolve alongside user behavior and search engine algorithms. Use tools to analyze your site and highlight areas that need to be reviewed for mobile accessibility.

Common mobile SEO mistakes

There are a number of errors that can significantly impact your mobile SEO efforts, including:

• Small font size. Although your content may look great on desktop, it may not work as well on small mobile screens. Tiny text is difficult to read and may increase your website’s bounce rates.
• Slow page speeds: According to Google, 53% of users abandon mobile websites that take more than three seconds to load. And Potent found sites that load in one second have a conversion rate three times higher than sites that load in five seconds.
• Not optimizing for mobile keywords: Although you might think keywords are the same across platforms, mobile users tend to conduct searches with shorter, more conversational terms. Savvy businesses include terms for both desktop and mobile — and sometimes even voice.
• 404 Errors: What’s worse than not finding what you’re looking for? Finding a link to what you want but getting an error when you click it. Broken links frustrate users and can negatively affect impact your visibility on SERPs. Monitor 404 error logs, fix broken links as often as you can, and make sure your website has proper redirects in place to avoid stranding users.
• Responsive design failures: If your website isn’t fully responsive, it may display poorly on mobile devices. A truly responsive design gives users a seamless experience on any device.
• Intrusive pop-ups: Pop-ups that cover the entire screen and are difficult to close interrupt the user experience and may cause your website’s visibility to drop in SERPs. Only use pop-ups when absolutely necessary, and make sure users can easily “opt out.”
• Too many ads: Your website’s ads may not be a problem on desktop, but they may dominate the user experience on mobile’s tiny screen.

Our “VantagePoint” on mobile SEO

If you want to get your business to the top of your industry and keep it there, there’s no better marketing tool than your own website. But no matter how effective a selling tool yours currently is, if it’s not optimized for mobile, your company may be invisible to the majority of your potential customers.

Taking on mobile SEO can be complex and time-consuming, especially when you’re not familiar with the technical parts. Finding an experienced partner who has a complete understanding of the components that can drive targeted traffic to your website can help you to achieve the best possible ranking and increase traffic and conversions.

At VantagePoint Marketing, we help B2B clients identify the ways their customers and prospects are searching and optimize their sites for essential keyphrases on desktop and mobile. We don’t chase fads or resort to gray-hat tactics — we help our clients create a long-term and holistic B2B SEO strategy that prioritizes the user experience, understands search intent, optimizes content for every stage in the buying cycle, helps your business drive more traffic to your website and improves conversions.

Learn more about our mobile SEO offerings.

FAQs: Mobile SEO – optimizing your website for mobile users

Question

What is mobile SEO?

 Answer

More than half of today’s website traffic comes from mobile devices, and mobile SEO helps ensure that your business provides the best experience to these users. This strategy helps ensure your your website performs well on mobile devices and includes technical considerations, such as making the site responsive and improving load times, keyphrases for search engine visibility, and improving the user experience on smaller screens.

 Question

Why is mobile SEO important?

Answer

With 53% of traffic originating on mobile devices, every business needs to prioritize its visibility and user experience for mobile users.

Question

What does “mobile-first indexing” mean?

Answer

Now that mobile searches are more prevalent than desktop searches, Google has adapted its approach to prioritize the mobile version of a website’s content for indexing and ranking in SERPs.

Question

How can I check if my website is mobile-friendly?

There’s a handy resource called the Google Mobile-Friendly Test that analyzes your site and gives you feedback on issues that may impact mobile users’ experience on your website.

Question

What are common mobile SEO best practices?

Answer

Mobile SEO best practices include:

• Using a truly responsive web design to provide a seamless experience across platforms.
• Compressing images and minimizing redirects to increase page speed.
• Making content easy to interact with on mobile devices.
• Using structured data to improve search visibility.
• Testing your website on different devices.

Question

What is responsive web design, and why is it important for mobile SEO?

Answer

Responsive web design automatically adjusts your website’s layout and content to fit various screen sizes and orientations. This improves the user experience by providing a consistent and user-friendly experience across all devices, which can have a positive effect on your website’s visibility on SERPs.

Question

How does page speed affect mobile SEO?

Answer

Mobile users expect websites to load fast. Studies show a strong correlation between faster loading times and conversions, suggesting that removing even small barriers to conversion can pay off in results. Slow load times are correlated with higher bounce rates and fewer mobile conversions.

Question

What role does content play in mobile SEO?

Answer

Content plays a significant role in mobile SEO, directly influencing user engagement, search ranking and overall website performance. Easy-to-read content with larger fonts and shorter paragraphs performs well on mobile, particularly when its buttons and links are easy to tap on smaller screens.

Question

How can websites optimize local SEO for mobile users?

Answer

Consider the mindset of users in your area who are searching for your products and services. Because they’re most likely searching with the name of their city or the phrase “near me,” it’s important to optimize for location-based keywords, make sure your Google My Business profile is complete, and use structured data. It’s also a good idea to optimize for voice search with long-tail conversational keywords that align with the types of queries that come through digital assistants.

Question

What are mobile SEO services, and do I need them?

Answer

If you’re not familiar with the technical aspects of SEO or don’t have the time to manage your search engine optimization yourself, you may want to consider hiring an experienced digital marketing agency, such as VantagePoint Marketing, to help. With nearly 30 years in business and each team member having an average of 15 years of experience in their respective fields, we can help you improve your search rankings, drive traffic, and increase conversions.

Question

How often should I update my mobile SEO strategy?

Answer

With customer needs and behaviors constantly in flux, the best way to improve or maintain your position is by regularly testing your website on various devices, and staying up-to-date with Google’s algorithm changes. Ideally, you should evaluate your website’s performance and engagement monthly and make continuous improvements and additions to content whenever possible.

Question

What should I do if my website fails the Google Mobile-Friendly Test?

Answer

The Google Mobile-Friendly Test highlights deficiencies that need to be addressed. You can fix them with such improvements as making your site responsive, increasing page speed, optimizing images, and ensuring that your content is easily accessible on mobile devices.

Question

Can a non-responsive website still rank well in search results?

Answer

While it’s not impossible depending on the amount of competition for a given search term and how well your website meets the parameters of a specific query, it’s difficult for a non-responsive website to rank well in search results, particularly with Google’s focus on mobile-first indexing.

Question

Are there any tools to help with mobile SEO?

Answer

Yes, there are a number of resources that can help you with mobile SEO, including:

• Google Mobile-Friendly Test instantly shows how accessible your website is for mobile device users. It also identifies usability issues that may be affecting the mobile experience.
• Google’s PageSpeed Insights analyze your website’s content and suggests ways to improve page speed.
• Screaming Frog is known for its ability to crawl websites and identify technical SEO issues such as broken links, duplicate content, missing meta tags, and improper redirects.
• GTmetrix is a strong choice for comprehensive site performance analysis and is highly effective for diagnosing site speed issues and improving the user experience (UX).

Question

What are the consequences of ignoring mobile SEO?

Answer

Mobile SEO is an opportunity to improve search engine ranking, increase targeted website traffic, enhance your user experience and, ultimately, boost conversions. Failing to optimize for mobile will cause your website to fall behind your competitors and miss out on potential revenue.