Smartphones aren’t just an accessory but an essential part of our everyday lives. We can look up information, order a product, take pictures, book appointments, and call or text someone in a matter of minutes.
With more people spending time on their smart devices, it is essential for website owners and digital marketers to customize their websites to become mobile SEO friendly. But what is it in the first place?
Mobile SEO is optimizing your website to ensure it responds seamlessly on mobile devices. When implemented, your web pages provide an excellent user interface and experience to visitors regardless of their device names and screen sizes.
Some businesses do not regard this in their digital marketing, and that’s a huge problem. When your website is not set for mobile SEO optimization, it will affect your conversion efforts and your target audience’s perception of your business.
This article offers a breakdown of what it is and the mobile SEO best practices to deploy on your website.
Importance of Mobile SEO
According to research, 52% of global internet traffic comes from smartphones. This is an eye-opener for business owners to customize their websites for mobile SEO. Search engines prioritize mobile user experience as a ranking factor during an organic search.
Why is SEO mobile important? We look at the reasons below:
Loads Your Website Quicker
Your site loading speed is essential to how and where your site shows up on SERPs. When your website takes a long time to load on mobile devices, it sends a wrong signal to search engines.
Mobile SEO ensures your website loads quickly for your visitors and search engines.
Decreases Bounce Rate
Visitors might leave if your website is unresponsive, increasing your bounce rate. A high bounce rate means your web pages aren’t suitable for mobile users.
Mobile SEO service helps lower your website’s bounce rates, allowing people to spend more time engaging with your content.
Improves Mobile User Experience
Another importance to optimizing your website for mobile SEO is that it improves the user experience of your visitors using smartphones. When people get into your website and can seamlessly navigate different content, it leaves a great impression on them.
They’d want to recommend your website to their friends and family. Mobile SEO makes sure of that.
Responsive On All Mobile Devices
Another importance of mobile SEO is that it ensures that your website is responsive on all smartphones. It ensures that both Apple and Android phones of different screen sizes can access the same content without delays.
Increased Mobile Conversions
Mobile SEO is essential because it improves conversion rates from your mobile visitors. Your bottom line will improve significantly when people can have a seamless customer purchase journey.
Mobile SEO is what you need to crown your digital marketing efforts with great success.
These are just a few of the many benefits of implementing SEO for mobile on your website.
Difference Between Mobile SEO and Desktop SEO
Most people often mistake mobile SEO and desktop as the same thing. While they might be similar in operation, they have distinct functionalities.
What are their differences?
● Location. This is one of the significant differences between both SEOs. Search engines consider the location of smartphones to deliver local results to them. This is because most phones make use of GPS to identify their location. While desktops have location monitoring, it is not an essential factor for delivering results. So, the results for desktops may be generic.
● Click-through rates. Due to the nature of both products, their click-through rates (CTR) are pretty different. For mobile devices, the CTR is low, as users will want to take their time to preview the meta title and description before clicking it. For desktops, the CTR is relatively high, as they get access to more search results due to their landscape screen size.
● Search layout. Another difference between mobile SEO and desktop SEO is the search layout. Mobile phones are evidently smaller, revealing fewer results at a time. Desktop SEO displays various search results due to its landscaped screen size.
Why Is Mobile SEO So Important to Generate Traffic?
You’ve learned that mobile SEO is essential for your website. But why is it important in the grand scheme of things?
According to Google, people spend 70% of their digital time on mobile devices. This means there’s a high possibility that most of your website visitors will be smartphone users. If your website is mobile-friendly, they will keep returning there and recommend it to their friends and family.
An unresponsive website is a massive turn-off to smartphone users, which might affect your ranking position on SERPs. Conversely, when your website is mobile-friendly, your conversion rates will go up.
How to Check for Mobile Traffic in Google Analytics
Do you want to monitor your website traffic from mobile devices on Google Analytics? It’s pretty easy. Follow these steps:
● Sign in to Google Analytics with your Google account.
● Select your website account from the menu.
● On the dashboard, click Audience > Mobile > Overview.
You will be able to see and analyze your website traffic from smartphones.
How to Check for Mobile Traffic in Semrush
You can also track your website’s mobile traffic using Semrush, another web analytics tool. All you need to do is:
● Sign in to Semrush.
● Visit Traffic Analytics.
● Input your website and click on Traffic Overview.
How to Check if Your Website Is Mobile Friendly
Checking if your website is mobile-friendly is one of the best Mobile SEO audits you should carry out. So, how do you check if your website is mobile-friendly?
● Use Google Mobile-Friendly Test Tool. Using the Mobile-Friendly Test Tool, you can check if your website is mobile-friendly. All you need to do is input your URL on the box and click to view the report.
● Check mobile usability report on Google Search Console. You can also use your Google Search to know if your site is mobile-friendly. On your dashboard, visit the Mobile Usability report to track and troubleshoot the mobile-friendliness of your website.
● Use other checkers. You can also utilize other online digital tools to check if your website is mobile-friendly. They include W3C Mobile Checker, MobiReady, Small SEO Tools, SiteChecker, BrowserStack, and many more.
How to Optimize Mobile SEO
Now that you know mobile SEO is essential to your digital marketing campaigns, what are the best practices to optimize it?
● Improve your site loading speed. Your website loading speed is vital to have excellent conversion rates. Our previous article covered how to make your website faster.
● Make your website responsive. Your website should be responsive for both PCs and smartphones. Your web development and design should take implement this.
● Improve your mobile user experience. Looking for different information from your website shouldn’t be difficult. Ensure that everything is in the right place to improve user perception of your website. Your navigation bar should be easy to locate.
● Optimize title tags. Every website page should have a meta title and meta description, as search engines also use that as a ranking factor.
● Optimize ‘near me’ content. Your content should be optimized for local results. The reason is that Google considers the device location when displaying results.
Mobile User Experience
Mobile user experience (often referred to as UX) refers to a user’s positive experience when using a device to access something.
Your website should have an excellent user experience, as it is essential for lower bounce rates, higher conversions, and increased sessions.
WordPress Plugins to Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly
Popular CMS, WordPress, comes with a truckload of themes and plugins that promises mobile-friendliness. However, there are standout plugins that will make your website as responsive as possible.
They include:
● Superfly
● Smush
● Jetpack
● WP Mobile Menu
● Hummingbird
● Touchy
Conclusion
Mobile SEO should be incorporated into your digital marketing efforts to achieve the best results. Need a helping hand to make it possible? Dispensary Growth is a leading digital marketing firm tasked with improving your website to fulfill your marketing objectives.
Our services include website design and development, website analytics, content marketing, website wireframing, and many more. Contact us today to see how we can help take your brand to the next level.
