The introduction of the iPhone in 2007 gave people the ability to browse the web from their pocket and changed SEO around the globe. More traffic than ever is coming from mobile devices and your site’s performance on mobile is an important factor in organic search ranking. The majority of searches on Google come from a mobile platform so the search engine uses mobile-first indexing which prioritizes the mobile version of a site for content and ranking.
Making sure your site is optimized for users on mobile devices is a big part of an effective SEO strategy.
Test for Mobile-Friendly Pages
Making sure your web pages are mobile-friendly is an essential part of making sure they can achieve the best organic rankings. Google introduced the Mobile-Friendly Test in 2016 to give developers a tool to scan a url for mobile-friendliness and report any problems that need to be optimized for mobile.
You can also check the mobile usability report in the url inspection tab in Google Search Console to see if a page is considered mobile-friendly in the search index.
Optimize Site for Mobile Devices
Getting your site optimized for mobile will make a big difference in how it ranks in organic search results. A content optimization checklist that can be used as a guide for the best updates to make for mobile SEO can be helpful. Here are a few things to look at to make sure it’s ready to perform well on mobile.
Site Speed
Page speed is one of the most important components of mobile SEO. It’s been reported that more than 50% of visitors will leave a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load so making sure content loads fast is a must. A few things you can do to optimize for site speed:
Image Size
Images should be saved at the correct dimensions for the location where they will be displayed so they don’t take unnecessary resources to load.
Load Site Over CDN
Using a content delivery network (CDN) like Cloudflare to deliver content fast from a network of servers can help site load fast around the globe.
Minify Site Code
Minifying the HTML, CSS and Javascript used on the site removes unnecessary characters from the code without altering functionality so it can load as quickly as possible. Plugins like Autoptimize are available to help minify code on WordPress sites but site functionality should always be tested after changes are made to make sure minification is working as expected.
Responsive CSS
Pages built for mobile will respond to the screen size a site is being viewed on so content is displayed in a way that’s easy to access. Adding responsive CSS to your site that uses media queries to implement mobile breakpoints where content stacks is a great way to make sure your site is ready to be viewed on mobile.
Actually viewing your site on a phone or using the Inspector tool in Google Chrome are the 2 best ways to check how it looks on mobile after making any changes.
Think Local
A high percentage of searches done from mobile devices are from people looking for services locally which makes optimizing for Local SEO an effective method to increase organic search rank. Setting up a Google Business profile that’s connected to your site and giving satisfied customers an easy way to leave reviews are 2 great ways to improve Local SEO.
Title and Meta Description
Fewer characters show in the titles and meta descriptions that show in search results pages on mobile. Because of this, making sure to optimize titles and meta descriptions with important keywords show near the beginning of info displayed on SERPs is the best way to make sure they’ll be associated with your site.
Prioritize User Experience
Using elements like mobile hamburger menus and a responsive framework will help make your site more inviting to users and help keep them on your pages longer. Good user experience and good SEO are closely related so any change intended to improve how easy it is for users to find and access content should also help optimize for SEO.
SEO Strategy Takeaways
Mobile is a bigger part of the SEO landscape than ever so optimizing for mobile is essential for a good SEO strategy. Sites that use responsive css so content is easy to access on mobile rank higher on Google and offer a better user experience. Google and other search engines have let SEO experts know that they must prioritize site design for mobile viewers and that doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.