Prepare for the mobile apocalypse! Here's a simple guide with 5 tips to safeguard your online rankings on mobile devices.
In today's digital age, mobile optimization is no longer an option but a necessity. A recent study found that the average survey contains 22 fields, which can be daunting on a mobile device [1]. To improve the mobile search experience, Google has released a new algorithm update [2].
This update will make mobile optimization a necessity for websites, as non-mobile-friendly sites may experience a decrease in search engine rankings and web traffic starting April 22 [2]. To prepare for this, here are some key preparation steps:
- Use Responsive Web Design: Adopt a design that dynamically adjusts layout and content for different screen sizes, ensuring your site looks great on all devices.
- Avoid Intrusive Pop-ups: On mobile, intrusive pop-ups disrupt user experience and may be penalized. Avoid using them to improve user experience.
- Compress and Optimize Images: Reduce mobile load times and bandwidth by compressing and optimizing images on your site.
- Mirror Desktop and Mobile Content: Ensure your mobile site’s content, meta tags, and structured data mirror the desktop version to avoid ranking issues due to Google's mobile-first indexing.
- Improve Mobile Navigation and Usability: Make it easy for users to find and interact with your content without zooming or excessive scrolling.
- Monitor Mobile User Engagement Metrics: Regularly track metrics like bounce rate and session duration to identify and fix issues promptly.
Google’s mobile-first indexing means the mobile version of your site is primarily used for ranking. A poor mobile experience directly harms your SEO performance [2][3]. To maximize the potential of this shift, a website should have a clear, easy-to-find, and easy-to-use call to action button [4].
Changing the colour of the call to action button to an attention-grabbing hue or adding subtle animation can help increase its effectiveness [4]. Offering Social Autofill can also increase conversion rates up to 189% [1]. Positioning the signup form at the top of the landing page alongside engaging content can deliver maximum views to the form [4].
Tweaking the button copy to better communicate the value proposition and adding motivating text can boost conversion rates [4]. On mobile devices, it's important to make sure the most important content displays in the top few pixels of the page to reduce the need for scrolling [4].
Chris Lucas, vice president of marketing at Formstack, emphasized the importance of mobile optimization, stating, "Forms are a critical part of a website's online real estate and should be optimized for mobile" [4].
With mobile users who find a business online having a conversion percentage nearly three times higher than desktop or laptop users, and 70% of mobile searches leading to online action within an hour [4], it's clear that mobile optimization is crucial for businesses.
Gartner projects that ultramobiles, including tablets, hybrids, and clamshells, will take over as the main driver of growth in the devices market beyond 2014 [6]. Adopting a broader SEO strategy aligned with Google's evolving algorithms can help businesses stay resilient through future algorithm changes [5].
Sources: [1] Form Conversion Report, 2015 [2] Google, Mobile-friendly update, 2015 [3] Google, Mobile-first indexing, 2018 [4] Chris Lucas, vice president of marketing at Formstack, quoted in Mobile Marketing Magazine, 2015 [5] Moz, Future-proof your SEO strategy, 2018 [6] Gartner, Ultramobiles to take over devices market, 2014
In the realm of business, optimizing for mobile users is no longer an ancillary matter, but a pivotal aspect of a successful lifestyle and home-and-garden strategy. Enhancing a website's mobile compatibility, as suggested by Google's data-and-cloud-computing innovations, can significantly impact search engine rankings, web traffic, and ultimately, a business's technology performance.
