In this world of technology and integration, usage of mobile is increasing with each second that passes by. Whole of the online industry is going mobile and eventually everyone is getting involved with this popular trend.
With the introduction of web browsers in mobile and increasing number of smartphones, mobile world has changed into a universe of online sites, shops, advertising and extras.
Marketing professionals treat mobile SEO very differently from standard SEO practices.
Before we indulge ourselves into very descriptive end of this topic, let’s start with very basic question of all. What is Mobile SEO?
What is Mobile SEO?
Mobile SEO is the activity of doing search engine optimization to hike your website’s visibility in mobile devices.
“Mobile SEO makes your website appear in mobile search engine results in such a way that user who access your site via a mobile device has an optimized experience overall”.
Basically, it is the way using which your website can be easily found when any user is searching a related topic to your industry on a mobile device.
Mobile devices are becoming critical to user’s life with so many technological friendly sites pouring in. Still, there are few businesses that have yet not considered focusing on making their websites more mobile friendly.
So, here are few points that will give you enough reasons to optimized your mobile SEO right away.
Why Mobile SEO?
It is a well know fact that every year mobile devices are becoming more and more critical to people’s lives.
In United States alone, mobile digital time has seen a significant increase (51%) as compared to the desktop (42%). Also, a study revealed that 75% of Americans accepted bringing their mobiles to the bathrooms showing how much people are attached to the mobile devices.
Showing how critical mobile devices are for brands, 48% of user globally first start searching on mobile if they are looking for any branded websites or apps.
Seeking the most popular devices amongst the internet users, around 80% of them own a Smartphone.
Experts also found that every 4 out of 5 consumers do use Smartphone for shopping purposes.
Also, it is been predicted that by the year 2020, around 30B users will contribute to the global mobile traffic.
Stats also speaks that around 67.2% of the consumers uses a Smartphone to check their email.
You will be also amazed to know that email reading via mobile has increased at an astonishing rate of 180% in just a span of 3 years.
It is also expected that majority of internet users (approximately 80%) will ensure to read emails using the mobile devices.
Mobile SEO Industry
As per a study from Business Intelligence depicts that by the year 2020, there will be an approximately 3.5B Smartphone will be shipped globally.
Although, we are seeing a huge scale up in mobile device usage and Mobile SEO implementation across the online business industry, yet there are few shortcomings marketers are worried about.
Since 4 out of 5 consumers conduct a local search on search engines, depicting how important is local SEO in marketing.
Local searchers are not yet ready for this. Too many businesses are under-using it. This is because of the fact that optimization of local search is quite tough.
Marketers can come out of this problem by considering 3 main aspects:
- Relevance: You have to make sure that Google understand your business, in order to match the listing with the related search items. So, a wise marketer will provide in-depth and complete information about your business.
- Distance: It is equally important to consider the fact that how far is your business from the location that is entered by the user. Suppose, if the user has not entered any location, then, Google will account for whatever information they have about the location.
- Prominence: If you are a business owner of something which is not popular online but offline, it is of no use to Google. Ofcourse, Google will take into account the information it has from across the web such as links and articles, still it is highly recommendable for the businesses to create a firm online presence too.
For all the marketers and business owner here are some more important facts and figures of Mobile SEO industry:
- 90% of the mobile searches result in action such as business location or purchasing a product.
- 60% of shoppers on mobile search for a product before making a purchase decision.
- 50% of mobile searches made a mobile purchase in last six months.
Google and Mobile SEO
Google just adores mobile devices. If there is a website with a low mobile-friendliness, Google ensure to rank it much lower on its mobile search result pages.
- On March 16 of this year, Google announced that it is going to increase the relevance of possessing a mobile page. Google also announced that websites that are not mobile friendly will rank even lower than they were before.
- On 21st April 2015, Google first time rated a websites based on its mobile device user convenience. Basic idea behind this move was to give the mobile users a better and improvised search experience. Since most of the publishers made sure to follow that update, users are now having pretty decent mobile pages of most of the companies.
- In year 2014, Google made an attempt to mark the relevance of mobile friendly pages by providing the websites with a badge.
- One of the most alarming issues when it comes to user convenience with respect to the mobile devices is the slow speed with which the mobile devices load the page. For solving the same, Google has introduced Accelerated Mobile Pages that makes sites load faster on mobile devices. AMP however is not a criterion for ranking the pages still, yet Google prominently attributes AMP pages.
- On November 18 2014, Google announced the introduction of labeling of mobile friendly pages on web.
- Yesterday only, i.e. on 23rd August 2016, Google announced to remove the same as it has found that 85% of all pages on mobile search results now fulfill those criteria. Google ensured that mobile-friendly criteria will resume being a ranking signal.
Also, Google made sure to provide best user experience on mobile devices by offering another scheme, considering the fact that some of the websites content seems okay but their pages shows some intrusive interstitial to users.
But why? Well, underlying content is available on the page and is also present to be indexed by Google, but it may become visually obscure. This can lead to user to frustrate, as they will face difficulty in accessing the content that was previously expected to be seen easily.
For this issue, Google ensured that W.E.F. January 2017, pages where content is difficult to access for a user on the mobile device may rank lower.
Few points that Google covered for the businesses to understand what practices may lead to lower ranking:
- Exhibiting a popup that have main content, either just after the user browse to a page from the search results, or while they are navigating through the page.
- Using a layout where the above-the-fold portion of the page appears similar to a standalone interstitial, but the original content has been inlined underneath the fold.
- Showing a standalone interstitial that the user has to dismiss before accessing the main content.
So, be alert and make sure that whatever content you are offering must be in compliance with Google standards or else!
Ending Statement
So, for all you marketers that are planning to go forward and implement their content marketing strategy and cover a larger customer base, Google has some implications, you would like to follow.
Because if you do not work in line with Google implications, it may lead to lowering your site’s rank accordingly.
If you have any questions and suggestions, feel free to reach me at [email protected].
Website: https://adlatch.com/
