Any business owner hoping to improve the traffic their website receives by using SEO should know that multiple optimizations must be assessed and implemented. Some are minor and take a matter of seconds, others are more comprehensive and in reality, can take several weeks for Google’s algorithm to recognise them.
Of all the SEO that might be carried out, with the massive growth in the use of mobile devices in recent years, it has come to the point where optimizing for mobile has as much, and arguably, more importance than optimizing for desktop PCs. What this means for your SEO efforts is that you must implement mobile SEO, otherwise you are effectively telling Google that you are happy that over 50% of searches will not see your website appear.
That might seem like a stark warning, but it is given in the hope that if you have not already, you soon appreciate that mobile SEO is essential. To give you some help in ensuring your website is optimised for mobile SEO, here are 7 of the key SEO factors that you should focus on.
Factor #1: Ensure Pages Open Instantly
If your website has even a fraction of a second delay in opening any pages on mobile devices, it is effectively dead in the water. Not only do mobile users expect instant gratification i.e. pages opening instantaneously, but Google will also frown upon slow page opening too, and that means your rankings plummet.
Factor #2: Keep Your Content At The Highest Level Of Accuracy And Quality
The content that you publish on pages specifically designed for mobile consumption should never be deemed less essential nor should it have any reduction in its quality. It would be best if you had the mindset that every piece of content you publish, regardless of where and why, should be the best.
Factor #3: Organise Content So That It Is Optimised For Mobile Screens
To provide the best user experience (another huge ranking factor) for mobile users, your content needs to be organised correctly. This will include trimming your content down from how it might appear on desktop devices so that it is more easily digested on mobile devices with the use of a ‘More’ button to reveal the hidden content, for example.
Factor #4: Grant Google’s Bots Access To Your CSS And JavaScript Files
The webmaster or owner often has it set up on many websites to stop Google’s bots from accessing some of the JavaScript and CSS code. That can negatively impact the data sent back to Google when mobile bots crawl your website. In the Google Search Console for your site, activate the ‘Fetch and Render’ tools to resolve this.
Factor #5: Ensure All Your Local Information Is Included
For any local business hoping to be found on the search engines by potential prospects, it is as vital that your local information (name, address, phone number, directions) appears on your mobile pages as it is when someone lands on your website via a PC.
Factor #6: Employ Plenty Of Negative Space
Although mobile device screens are more significant than they once were, they are still tiny compared to desktop displays. For this reason, you should ensure that when your pages, particularly your content, appear, there is plenty of negative space. Negative space is the space between buttons, text images, and so on, making it easier for users to identify and click on them.
Factor #7: Ensure You Have Your Mobile Pages Marked As ‘Fetch As Google Mobile’
Just as you can assess how Google’s bots see your desktop pages by activating ‘Fetch As Google, you can do likewise with your mobile pages by setting up ‘Fetch As Google Mobile’. This allows you to make any necessary optimizations for mobile SEO.