Why do you need a mobile SEO strategy with laptops and PCs still around for your business? In 2021, the typical consumer in the U.S.A spent 161 minutes per day on a mobile device.
Furthermore, according to a report by Statista, 52.2% of all website traffic worldwide comes from mobile devices. And traffic means sales.
The revolution of mobile SEO is an excellent opportunity to increase online visibility through organic website traffic and multiple chances to convert your visitors to customers.
With the ever-changing algorithms in global platforms and ever-growing techniques of Mobile SEO for digital marketing, it can be convoluted and overwhelming. Thus, we’ll provide you with the best practices for mobile optimization to assist you in delivering potential customers a smooth web experience by 2022.
Why Does Mobile SEO Matters for Your Brand?
Search Engine Optimization(SEO) primarily drives two factors—rankings and website visibility.
And so, it’s essential to have a mobile-friendly site for your audience’s brand perception and search engine ranking.
The following are some reasons that mobile SEO matters for your brand:
Users spend over 70% of their Internet time on mobile devices.
By 2022, B2B Buyer’s Survey found that 67% of B2B buyers start the buying process with a broad web search.
Over 65% of visitors prefer to purchase from a mobile-friendly company.
Around 75% of users will return to a mobile-friendly site.
Search engines prioritize mobile when crawling and indexing websites.
There are also multiple advantages of mobile SEO, to list a few:
Generating Increased Traffic
More Conversions
Affects Buying Behavior
Brand Positioning
Decreased Bounce Rate
Improves Overall User Experience
Increase in ROI
With all of these components and factors taken into account, the only opportunity for potential customers to notice and consider your brand is by showing up in their search results.
Thus, we’ll take a deep dive into the core factors and best practices of a successful mobile SEO strategy in 2022—content, links, and technical website setup.
9 Mobile SEO Best Practices in 2022
Set your website configuration.
Check your web pages.
Improve your website loading speed.
Ensure smooth website navigation
Avoid cluttered designs.
Improve your URL Structure.
Fix dead links and broken redirects.
Optimize your website for Local SEO.
Track your website’s performance.
1. Set your website configuration.
Google launched its mobile-first index in 2018. It is where the search engine keeps all the data gathered from websites. Indexing allows it to understand these bits of information.
The entire web uses this type of index nowadays. In response, people used the following methods to configure their websites:
Separate sites – The oldest website configuration method involved creating two different versions. One was for PCs, while the other was for mobile phones. However, this took a lot of time and effort. It is why some companies still are not using the newer methods.
Dynamic serving – A website will have one URL to lead visitors to versions that match their devices. It meant creating a webpage for every model and screen size of a smartphone! As you can imagine, this also took too much time and effort.
Responsive web design – This method involves a single URL that adapts to each visitor’s device. The owner doesn’t have to make multiple web pages, and they load faster. More importantly, Google prefers this method over the others.
Plan your website carefully. Be sure about your website configuration. Otherwise, you’ll end up wasting time and money. As we said, it’s enough for companies to avoid the new methods.
2. Check your web pages.
Your website contains several web pages. Each page on your site plays a vital role in the user experience. That is why you must check them one by one.
Fortunately, you can do this without spending a dime. Google Search Console is a free service that contains all the needed tools. Here’s how you can use it to test web pages:
Open the Google Search Console.
Find the “Mobile Usability” button. A menu should appear. It will show the results that visitors get when they head to your website.
Check the results for any issues. If there are any, the Console will show notifications and provide steps for fixing the problems.
Alternatively, you may use the Google Mobile-Friendly Test Tool. It works like Google’s homepage. Add your website’s URL to the search bar and click below.
It would be best if you still visit the sites yourself. Use a device that isn’t connected to your company. In other words, it should not link to your online tools.
Your device may have cookies or apps that work on that site. Having them means you can access them more accessible than your customers. As a result, you’ll get a little experience.
On the other hand, a random device can show how regular folks see your website. You should use more than one method, though.
3. Improve your website loading speed.
Say you allow online purchases on your website. If it has long load times, your customers will likely leave you. They won’t hang around if they can get better service elsewhere!
What’s more, your lead generation will take a hit if your website is slow. For example, you’ll have difficulty getting qualified leads if your site loads too slowly.
Here’s another reason. Let’s say your customer finally locked in their purchase. If you take too long to process the transaction, they’re likely to change their mind and leave.
It is why page speed is essential. Thankfully, Google’s mobile speed test can help you. Similar to the earlier Google tools, it’s free and straightforward.
It will show you how fast your website loads. The test will show how your website performs in mobile and desktop searches. Also, it will provide solutions.
What’s more, try Mobile Analysis with Google Developers PageSpeed Insights. Afterward, perform regular checks with the PageSpeed Insights analyzer tool.
4. Ensure smooth website navigation.
Perhaps your website has minimal load times. However, you may find that it looks wrong on some devices. It might be the result of poor web optimization.
For example, parts of the website may appear in the wrong segments. Perhaps users have to adjust the page because the text is too big.
In turn, visitors quickly leave your site. It could raise your bounce rate. Fortunately, mobile SEO practices for this issue are similar to desktop. See how to fix this below:
Make user-friendly menus – Your menus should not appear on your homepage. Otherwise, they’ll take up substantial space on the page. Instead, it should show up as a pull-down menu or toggle.
Adjust the screen size – Your website should adapt to each visitor’s screen size. Use responsive web design or dynamic serving.
Offer easy search – Make it easy for users to access the search bar. Your search filters should lower the chances of producing zero results.
Include widgets – If you’ve checked your competitors’ websites, you may have noticed a small button in the bottom right corner. These often lead you to a customer service representative or a chatbot. It’s a small detail that can make a huge difference in user experience.
5. Avoid cluttered designs.
You’ve used the best practices for mobile SEO so far. Your website has minimal load times, and it’s easy to use. Yet, you still have minimal site traffic. What could be the problem?
Your website shouldn’t just focus on functions. It must also be top-notch in its form. Improve it using these steps:
Writing short paragraphs – Smartphones have limited screen space. You don’t want massive walls of text using up so much of it. Instead, divide them into smaller sections. This article applies this mobile SEO method!
Using bullet points – Don’t use paragraphs for lists. Otherwise, readers will have to strain their eyes to read every sentence. Use bullet points instead.
Choosing the right fonts – A fancy font style can make your website unique. However, readers might find it hard to read. Use simple ones like Arial instead. Use other ways to dazzle your audience.
Picking the right colors – Your web pages shouldn’t be drab and dull. On the other hand, it shouldn’t hurt the eyes with too many colors. Use one color for the background and another for the text.
6. Improve your URL Structure.
Search engines crawl sites and follow links. Google crawlers land on a website and use links to find other content to analyze.
Search engines don’t like reading extensive strings of words with complex structures. Thus, if possible, shorten your URLs. Put them up to include as little beyond the main keyword for which you want to optimize the page as possible.
7. Fix Dead Links and Broken Redirects
A broken link is an internal link that sends a website visitor to a nonexistent page, such as a 404 error. Discontinued content, server technical issues, or mistyped links result in many dead links on certain websites. It is particularly striking when the links enclose in reused site layouts, like headers and footers. A dead redirect points to a resource that might no longer be there.
Both provide a poor user experience but, most importantly, prevent search engines from indexing your content.
8. Optimize your website for Local SEO.
When users search for a local business, they’ll utilize phrases like “open now” or “near me,” making local SEO fundamental to your mobile strategy.
46% of Google searches comprise local businesses. They search for store suggestions and even specific business landmarks, and 72% of searchers visit a local shop or business premises within 24 hours of the search.
When analyzing local websites, Google insinuates proximity to a user’s location. With the accumulation of local searches, it’s only fair that Google will attempt to present the closest businesses first.
Using local keywords, like your zip code, city, landmark, school, or state, will help you appear in more local and city-based search results.
9. Track your website’s performance.
Optimizing your content is a never-ending process. It’s crucial to keep up with the internet’s constant changes. Tracking your efforts helps strengthen your strategy further.
Search engines are constantly updating—also, operating systems like Windows change. Web browsers and mobile devices do this too.
It means your website may not perform as well as it did before. It is why you must keep up with the latest tech updates. Then, redo the mobile SEO methods accordingly.
Monitoring your SEO performance means tracking data about website traffic, user engagement, and links. Here are the most common SEO key performance indicators (KPIs):
Organic traffic growth
Keyword rankings
Conversions from organic traffic
Average session duration on page
Bounce rate
Top landing pages attracting organic traffic
Number of indexed pages
Cost per click
Links growth (including new and lost links)
Final Thoughts
This article shows you the basics of mobile SEO. However, it would help if you learned more to use it for your business indeed. It means taking time to learn about structured data and user agents.
It might be much better to outsource the optimization instead. This way, you’ll get great results with less time and money.
Fortunately, we’re here to provide the SEO expertise you deserve. With LeadAdvisors, you can rest assured that your digital marketing is in capable hands.
FAQs
More people prefer to use mobile devices when browsing the internet. It is why you must create content suited for these gadgets. In turn, you’ll rank high on the search results. What’s more, you’ll be able to provide a better user experience and project a positive brand image.
Your web pages should load correctly on any smartphone model or brand. They should not take too long to load and are hard to read. Still, you should follow desktop SEO practices, such as internal linking. Follow Google search requirements when writing your meta descriptions, alt texts, anchor texts, and title tags.
These are online services that allow you to optimize content for search engines. Google provides a wide range of free SEO options. On the other hand, paying for different services like SEMRush tools is good. For best results, you should use free and paid options.
