Mobile Optimization – its importance, benefits and major points to remember

Welcome to the world of content optimization. Here we would be talking about one of the basics of optimizing your website content available for the users of mobile devices, and presenting an experience customized to their device. 

But before that, a recap for all those who answers “no” to any or all of these questions…

Is your site optimized for mobile devices of all sizes?

Are you fully aware of the importance of mobile optimization?

Do you know what mobile optimization refers to?

Mobile optimization is the process of adjusting your website content in a way that the visitors access the site from mobile devices with an experience crafted and customized to their individual device. When a content is optimized well, it tends to flow easily between desktop and mobile devices resulting in an outstanding user experience.

How is mobile optimization different?

Mobile devices have small screens and users are often on-the-go. The mode of communication can be anywhere – in a bus, coffee shop or anywhere else. Optimized content is exclusively created for the mobile users, and easily adjusts to fit on smaller screens. The fonts are also adjusted according to the screen size not affecting the readability. Same goes with emails which tend to load faster post scanning on mobile devices.

Things to keep in mind for mobile optimization

a)      Create a seamless user experience on mobile

This is the most important thing to consider and a great user experience on smaller screens is a great deal as far as mobile optimization is concerned. This begins with a responsive website design – letting your site getting adapted to the user’s device irrespective of the screen size and operating system, automatically. Not only these, but elements like the menu design and call to action (CTA) also contribute well to the overall user experience.

b)      Mobile content shouldn’t be hidden

The risk of hidden contents from mobile users can prove in penalties, as far as Google’ rules of optimization are concerned. It is strictly advised not to hide contents as the practice has been a forbidden practice on websites mainly due to its past abuses. And Google updates the algorithm to penalize sites that are abusing it as the search engine wants you to show the same content from your desktop on your mobile site.

c)       Mobile-First Indexing

What’s that? Well, it is exactly what it sounds like – meaning that the mobile version of your website becomes the starting point for what Google includes in their index, and the baseline of how the rankings are determined. Googlebot should be allowed to crawl and index all content formats – texts, images and videos, on mobile devices. In other words, you should be using image alt tags and meta tags to their full potential.

The process is called mobile-first because it is not a mobile-only index.  Additionally, the term refers to the fact that the mobile version will be considered the primary version of your website.

d)      Voice-search optimization

Have you ever tried to look for something online when you are multitasking and couldn’t type the text? Isn’t it challenging? It is exactly when a voice search optimization comes into under the spotlight. Among the most innovative technology in recent times search optimization is voice search. Studies say that more than 71% of respondents would rather use their voice assistants to search for something than physically typing their queries directly on their screen. And the percentage is going to be higher in the coming years. 

People perform voice search from their mobile devices, and since the practice is on the uphill, optimizing your mobile friendly site for voice search is extremely crucial. This means rethinking your keyword strategy to better focus on long-form keywords and questions.

e)      Loading speed should be fast

One of the major ranking factors for mobile sites is their page speed. The speed has already been a major factor for desktop sites, and mobile devices play the same role now. The faster the page loads, the better user experience is resulted. Best sites are those that get downloaded under 3 seconds.

Here is the reason:

(Image Source: Think With Google)

f)        All internal links and redirects are working fine

Make sure that the website is crawlable and creates a user friendly experience. It is one of the major aspects of mobile SEO ensuring that your links and redirects are all top notch.

g)      Interstitials must never be present

What are interstitials? Well, these are features like pop-ups and other interruptive advertising which seem to be annoying for mobile users. These tend to disrupt the user experience resulting in visitors to exit without converting into leads. As a matter of fact, Google has declared in its official announcement that any content would be less accessible to the user if it contains popups covering the main content, displays a standalone interstitial that needs to be dismissed every time before accessing the content or uses a layout where the original content gets inlined underneath the fold of the page.

  

Tools to make a mobile SEO friendly website:

1.                   Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test - https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

A great tool to begin with, as it gives you a report on the mobile friendliness of your website, and you can make essential changes on the report. 

2.                   Test My Site - https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/feature/testmysite

Another one from Google which assures that mobile site speed won’t let you down. It keeps a check on your mobile speed. 

3.                   Google’s PageSpeed Insights – https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

Make your web pages fast on all devices. See how fast your site loads, plus any fixes you can make to speed it up.

4.                   Google Search Console - https://search.google.com/search-console/about

This lets you improve your performance on Google Search by helping you measure your site’s Search traffic and performance, fix issues and make your site shine in Google Search results.