Every year people spend more and more time on their mobile devices and tablets, but many websites still aren’t designed to account for different screen sizes and load times. Mobile optimization takes a look at site design, site structure, page speed, and more to make sure you’re not inadvertently turning mobile visitors away. Below are our tips for effective mobile SEO.
#1 Mobile SEO Tips: Responsive Web Design
One of the reasons that it’s necessary to think mobile first is that if you choose to go down the recommended route of having a responsive site, then it’s necessary to think about how content is going to be delivered.
Responsive is improving all the time, but one of the early problems found with the technology was loading times, especially with regard to mobile. This was because many sites were built for the desktop model and whilst a mobile device may not load everything on-screen, a lot of the time the full desktop content was being loaded in the background.
#2 Mobile SEO Tips: Page Speed
Because of hardware and connectivity issues, page speed is even more important for mobile users than desktop users. Beyond optimizing images, you’ll want to minify code, leverage browser caching, and reduce redirects.
#3 Mobile SEO Tips: Don’t Forget The Click-to-Call
Make it easy for customers to call you directly from your mobile site. Each mobile-friendly page should have the phone number predominately displayed with easy click-to-call access embedded in every page.
#4 Mobile SEO Tips: Think Like A Mobile User
What is my visitor most likely to want to accomplish with a mobile search? What problems do they want to solve, what do they need to find out? And how can I meet those needs? By answering questions like these you should be able to come up with keywords that respond to mobile user behavior and needs, and create content that attracts them to your site. In consequence, you can use the same keyword research tools you’ve been relying on so far, but apply human logic to determine which keywords would most likely be utilized in mobile queries, such as adding a location.
#5 Mobile SEO Tips: Analytics and Testing
It’s important to note at this point that going mobile first doesn’t mean that you should neglect the desktop site. It’s got to the time when we need to approach the web and how we market and design for it holistically, taking every scenario into account.
This means lots of testing before your site goes live. You can use A/B testing, which means that you test two different designs on two separate groups to gauge how effective each design is. These can be very similar but should use different CTAs and layouts in order to find out what aspects of each design users like the most.