Mobile SEO Tips for Mobile Marketers
Mobile marketers are currently focused on advertising formats such as banner ads, rich media, video, or a publisher’s native. Rightfully so, since those channels have performed well in the mobile ecosystem. However, marketers tend to forget about mobile SEO, which is a mistake. Mobile search on a smartphone is surprisingly popular among users. As consumers now are about to fully embrace mobile shopping, mobile SEO will become increasingly important. When looking at your mobile SEO you should keep some of these simple tips in mind:
Ensure Your Website is Responsive
A responsive designed site, will adjust the layout automatically to alter the text, images, content to fit the device that site is being displayed on. This should include iPhone/iPad, Android devices, and even desktop versions. While having a mobile specific HTML site is helpful and Google does recognize it, Google does prefer responsive designs over mobile HTML sites. Lastly, a website that has a responsive design is much easier to maintain since you are managing one website rather than multiple websites for different devices. Below is a great example of a website with responsive design:
Have a Single URL for your Site Whether its Mobile or Desktop
Having the same URL for both your mobile and desktop site helps with SEO rank. Paring a single URL with a responsive design allows users to easily share your content, through social media or through their own blogs. More importantly with a single site, all the links back point to one URL, which greatly increases their value in Google overall. Social sharing also helps with your organic search rank, but there is still a large debate on how much. Having a single URL can also be faster, since it doesn’t require a redirect per device, which slows down the user experience. The slower things are on mobile, the worse the user experience. Load times are very important when connecting over a cellular network.
Take Advantage of Local Search
While not technically SEO, the local search features of Google AdWords is very powerful, it provides users with results relevant to their location and is one of the big drivers in the increased use of search on smartphone. Many use local search to find a store location, call a store directly from the search result, or even do research online, which increases purchase intent on another device or directly in the store to buy. It’s important to align your users search intent with content and ensure you take into account the small screen size of mobile devices. Below is a great example:
Don’t Rely on Desktop Keyword Research for Mobile Keyword Research
Since the mobile experience is so different from the desktop, the terms that users search on their smartphones can be significantly different. It’s possible to view mobile keyword data in Google Analytics by selecting “Operating System” as the second dimension in your Organic Keyword report and filter out the desktop operating systems. Doing this will enable you to see what keywords work for driving users to your mobile site, which allows you to optimize those further and look for new keywords to optimize for. This will enable you to see what keywords to bid for and specifically how you handle bids based on organic rankings.