Rank In Mobile Search Results with These Tried and Tested Tips

Back in April 2015, Google decided to revamp its mobile search services. The aim was to ensure that people, who use their smartphones to search, get results that favor mobile-friendly sites. There is good reason for Google to start rewarding mobile friendly sites. Did you know that more Google searches are performed via mobile devices compared to desktop computers?

That’s a pretty huge deal; it means if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, your business is missing out on the possibility of reaching the majority of search traffic. Doesn’t feel so good, does it?

So what does “mobile-friendly” really mean?

Let us help you discover what you’ll need to do with your website to rank well in mobile search results:

1. User Experience Is Paramount: Ensure Your Website Is Easy On The Eyes, And Easy To Use!

Mobile-friendly websites are great for viewing on smaller screens. Despite the lack of space, these remain very user-friendly thanks to touch-based navigation, easy scrolling, and appropriate fonts among many other things.

Studies show that one in five pages ranking in the top 30 mobile search results use responsive design.

These websites are programmed to automatically adjust the format and screen size of the mobile phone, tablet or desktop used to access it. This has done wonders for enhancing user experience.

High ranking mobile pages are also generally less interactive than their desktop counterparts. This means fewer button and images, presenting the visitors with exactly the information they came looking for. Structuring information using bulleted lists is also a great idea; just remember to keep the text short, and to the point. If they are using their mobiles to search, chances are that they are in a hurry.

2. Make Sure That Your Mobile-Friendly Website is technically Sound! Remember, Only The Bare Minimum Will Do!

If your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, your visitor will simply go back to search results and click on another website in hopes of accessing the info they need faster.

Work on minimizing the site load time and eliminate all Flash elements entirely. Google’s PageSpeed Insights offer an awesome tool for you to ensure your websites speed and load times are up to the mark.

Images, animations, videos and Flash components can seriously hamper load speed because all of these eat away at the bandwidth and aren’t really compatible with the smaller screen size of mobile devices.

3. Mobile Websites Need High Quality and Relevant Content!

There is no getting around the fact that high quality, plagiarism free, relevant content rules Google.

This stays true for websites ranking higher in mobile search results as well. The trouble with generating content for mobile is that in all probability people will not stick around to read expansive web content, product descriptions or blogs. If accessing your site from a small screen mobile device, chances are that they need quick and easy access to whatever info, service and products they came looking for.

According to studies, content on mobile pages tends to be shorter on average (867 words) than on desktop (1285 words). That’s the average word count for high ranking pages in Google Search Results. Use the word count real estate wisely!

4. Inbound Links Don’t Have The Saving Grace of Yesteryears! Don’t Count on Them

Google has done everything but openly renounced sites with too many in bound links. Many marketers believe that if their mobile pages are linked heavily, it will enhance the ranking in SERPs.

Fact of the matter is that it’s okay for mobile pages to have very few links as compared to desktop pages. This is because mobile content is more often shared socially than through direct links.

5. Get Social - Strong Public Presence Is Good For Mobile Too!

Incorporating social signals into your mobile internet marketing strategy has many benefits. For starters, strong social signals correlate with high rankings.

This also gives rise to location-based communications that can help pinpoint the location of the customer and help businesses give them customized services with this new-found info.

High-ranking content also has a high number of social shares. This is because both social presence and high rankings help each other get more exposure and visibility.

Does Your Site Meet Google's Requirements for Mobile Friendliness?

It’s really easy to find the answer to that. Google has created a mobile-friendliness tool that gives a quick 'yes' or 'no' answer to that question, on a per-URL basis.

Google has been clear that the results of its Mobile-Friendly test are binary; meaning there can only be a yes or no answer.

There is another way to individually evaluate the mobile-friendliness of each page on your website. Just perform a "site:" query for the domain on your phone. This will let you see all the pages indexed to the domain, and find out which ones are mobile-friendly and which are not, without having to submit their URLs to the Google Mobile-Friendliness tool one at a time.

The Last Word

Once you have made all these changes to your website, and done everything else needed to enhance its mobile-friendliness, there is nothing to do but wait! Google needs times to check out all these changes and then move your website up in rankings accordingly.  

The delay in awarding a mobile-friendly notation isn’t intentional on Google’s part, of course.

Now, while most marketers and business owners understand the importance of having a mobile-friendly site, it is important not to take the one-size-fits-all approach to optimizing both their mobile and desktop content/mobile rankings can just as easily be tracked as desktop rankings, and it is important that marketers actively engage in both for a more holistic view of their digital marketing results.

Are you ready to follow a separate strategy for your mobile marketing efforts? Visit us at www.searchberg.com for more info. Let us help you formulate and execute a fool-proof link building service strategy that will help your website rank higher even in mobile search results.