Con­duct­ing research online usually takes place via a search engine and this is becoming in­creas­ing­ly common on smart­phones. For the first time, 2015 saw more Google search queries occurring on mobile devices than desktops. This has increased the pressure on website operators since they need to make sure that their products and services are displayed in an optimal way and can be easily found by the search engine. It’s therefore necessary to customize websites for mobile use. Mobile op­ti­miza­tion is primarily about user friend­li­ness (usability). Adapting your store or business website to users’ con­stant­ly changing habits benefits you in mobile SEO. This is because Google now counts a website’s mobile friend­li­ness as one of its ranking factors.

What is mobile SEO?

SEO stands for ‘search engine op­ti­miza­tion’, a dis­ci­pline of online marketing that helps to improve a website’s ranking in the search engine results pages. Mobile search engine op­ti­miza­tion (mobile SEO) has recently become an essential part of SEO planning. Google, the market leader, has reacted to increased mobile use and the growth of the ‘second screen’ by paying special attention to mobile sites. Mobile site op­ti­miza­tion has been an official ranking factor since the beginning of 2015. Website operators can find support and perform a ‘mobile friendly’ test on Google Search Console.

SEO goes mobile: options, im­ple­men­ta­tion, and typical errors

If you want to make sure that your website appears in the search engine results page on a mobile device, there are a few measures you need to take. The first step is choosing the ap­pro­pri­ate mobile con­fig­u­ra­tion for your own site.

1. What are the options for mobile sites?

There are three main ways to adjust your site for mobile devices: re­spon­sive design, a separate mobile website, or dynamic serving. An al­ter­na­tive option would be to develop your own app.

  • Re­spon­sive web design: the basic idea of re­spon­sive web design is the creation of a website that au­to­mat­i­cal­ly adjusts all its content and elements (i.e. images, videos, nav­i­ga­tion) to fit the size of the display. This is achieved through HTML code, which optimizes the site for the device used. Re­spon­sive web design can be im­ple­ment­ed quickly and easily, and since it’s rec­om­mend­ed by Google, it benefits the mobile website in terms of SEO.
  • Dynamic serving: with dynamic serving, the HTML code changes depending on the user iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the device. For example, the source code of a mobile site on a tablet is different to that of a smart­phone. The URL remains the same and the server provides the HTML code depending on the device type.
  • Separate mobile website: it’s also possible to build a separate mobile site, which is a mirror image of the desktop page. Though modelled on the desktop site, it’s an in­de­pen­dent entity with a different URL and HTML code. 

De­vel­op­ing an app: app indexing and store op­ti­miza­tion

Due to the ever-in­creas­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of apps, many busi­ness­es offer their customers an app in addition to their website. This should provide added value in the form of improved user ex­pe­ri­ence and useful functions. Whether the solution is a native app, a web app, a re­spon­sive design, or a mobile website, you should assess each in­di­vid­ual case. Important for mobile SEO: even with apps, dis­cov­er­abil­i­ty plays a role, although this applies more in the app store than with search engines. To generate a larger customer base, it’s essential to make the app ac­ces­si­ble and easy to find.

2. Indexing a mobile site

Once you’ve chosen a con­fig­u­ra­tion option, you need to make Google aware that a mobile site is available. In­struc­tions for the par­tic­u­lar con­fig­u­ra­tion can be found via Google Search Console. It’s important to give the crawler access to all website resources so that Google Tools can ensure that all elements are optimized for mobile browsers. According to Google, you should avoid the robots.txt file, which is used to deny the crawler access to certain content.

3. Avoid typical mistakes

Since mobile op­ti­miza­tion is a ranking factor, there are criteria for im­press­ing Google with mobile websites. The site must fulfil three important con­di­tions:

  • Mobile-friend­li­ness: this is the basic re­quire­ment for every ad­di­tion­al mobile SEO measure. Google’s ‘Mobile-Friendly Test tool’ can help. Bing, Google’s biggest rival, offers a similar tool.
  • Usability: this is not the same as mobile-friend­li­ness, but with Google’s support, you can also meet the ap­pro­pri­ate re­quire­ments here. Enter your URL into the PageSpeed Insights tool and you’ll receive tips for optimal user ex­pe­ri­ence (separate for desktop and mobile). The tool advises website operators to adapt font size, links, function buttons, and the con­fig­u­ra­tion of the display area.
  • Speed: as the name suggests, Google PageSpeed Insights checks a site’s speed as well. Possible tips here could be to reduce JavaScript and CSS, to use browser caching, and to optimize images.

You can avoid many of the typical mistakes that fre­quent­ly occur on mobile sites by using PageSpeed Insights. Besides blocked JavaScript, CSS, and image elements, other problems include non-re­triev­able content, faulty redirects, and mobile-specific 404 errors. This article shows you how to identify and resolve any typical SEO mistakes on mobile sites.

Tip

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Mobile search engine op­ti­miza­tion – more important than ever

Thanks to the ever-in­creas­ing number of smart­phone and tablet users, people can surf the net whenever and wherever they want, making Mobile SEO a central topic of search engine op­ti­miza­tion. This provides a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for new business areas such as mobile commerce or mobile payment, but it also poses a challenge for busi­ness­es that have yet to optimize their website. IONOS MyWebsite supports you by helping you design your website in re­spon­sive web design, as rec­om­mend­ed by Google.

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