Going Mobile with your SEO Strategy

Mobile search has taken off in recent years as more and more people are searching and buying directly from their mobile devices rather than from their desktop. According to Pingdom, mobile traffic has increased by 183.43% in Europe and 162.73% worldwide over the past two years.

With the introduction of the smart phone GoogleBot, brands are going mobile as mobile SEO becomes easier and their target markets spend more time looking for what they want online. As a result, mobile optimisation is becoming increasingly important. There are Google guidelines on how to optimise your site for mobile market.

Source: webmarketinggroup.co.uk via WebMarketing on Pinterest

Things to Consider:

Mobile Site Content

Ensure your content, images and video display and work correctly for mobile. Site architecture is also important, it needs to be uncomplicated enough to maintain usability and detailed enough to inform the smart phone GoogleBot of what your mobile site is all about. So make sure you keep titles and meta descriptions concise and relevant.

Site speed is even more important when it comes to mobile. Users already have to deal with slower connection speeds and limited connectivity, the last thing they want is a mobile site that takes an hour to load. Increase the time they spend on your site by making sure your mobile landing pages load fast.

There are different mobile site structures to choose from including responsive web design, dynamic serving and a parallel mobile site. Responsive web design is design that suits both desktop and mobile, so you are not at risk of duplicate content. Dynamic serving is an approach where HTML shown to mobile users and bots is different for desktop and mobile but retains the same URL. Parallel mobile site is where a separate URL is used for your mobile site, however, there can be a risk of duplication. Find out which site type is most suited to your needs and current set up.

The keywords you need to target for desktop search may be different to that of mobile search. You can use Google Adwords Keyword Tool to determine the most popular mobile search phrases and their variants for your niche. Simply filter on mobile devices to check the search volume for relevant keywords.

Much in the same way as you would identify the gap between your site pages and those of your competitors, you can use Google Analytics and OSE to determine how far your DA, PA and link profile is from competing in the rankings with other mobile sites. Simply compare mobile versions of your site and mobile versions of your competitor sites. It may be that the gap is too great to compete with their desktop organic search traffic, but you may be able to narrow the gap between mobile sites, helping to drive mobile traffic to you over your competitors.

If you want to know more about mobile SEO strategies and how you can increase mobile traffic and conversions, talk to our mobile search specialists today and see how we could help your business.