Google and other mobile search engines have different bots and algorithms than those used for traditional web search. They evaluate websites as if they were being rendered on a mobile phone and they rank results partially based on how well the page will render on the type of phone that submitted the query. If you look in your log files, you will see that Googlebot-Mobile has different user agents that spoof different phones, such as a Samsung phone, an iPhone, or an Erickson phone. This means that in some cases, different handsets will have different search results based on the evaluations that Google makes with the different user agents. The best way to improve your mobile SEO is to ensure that the mobile crawlers and user agents determine that your content will render well and load quickly on any mobile phone.
Although mobile search engines are not as precise as regular search engines, they still consider a website’s mobile bounce rate to be important. This is because they use mobile visitors’ experiences to judge how well a website works on phones. Therefore, it is essential to have a website that works well on mobile devices. Here are some tips on how to improve mobile rankings and rendering.
Basic mobile SEO & site architecture
To improve your mobile search results, follow traditional SEO best practices as closely as possible. This includes using title tags, heading tags, and alt tags.
== To format your site for viewing on a mobile phone, create a secondary mobile style sheet called “handheld.css.” This will allow you to leverage the SEO value of your existing site without creating new pages. You can use the mobile style sheet to block elements from being rendered by using the “display:none” attribute in the stylesheet. Most mobile phones (except iPhones) will automatically pull the “handheld” style sheet.
In some cases, mobile search engines will want to rank a traditional page, but find it ill-suited for rendering on a mobile phone—sometimes even if it has a mobile-specific style sheet. In these cases, the mobile search engines will rank your traditional content, but present a version of it that is optimized for viewing on a mobile phone.
The text is saying that if you don’t want your website to be transcoded into a mobile version, you need to put a “no-transform” cache-control in the header for your traditional content.
To create a mobile site map: 1. Go to Google’s mobile sitemap tool. 2. Enter your website’s URL. 3. Choose the type of mobile markup language you are using. 4. Submit your mobile sitemap. 5. Include a link to your mobile sitemap in your robots.txt file.
By following the steps of submitting a mobile site map, adding a mobile style sheet, and adding the no-transform tag, you will increase the chances that mobile search engines will crawl and rank your content. Coding in strict XHTML will also help to ensure that your content is accessible across a range of mobile phones and browsers.
How to Optimize your Website or Blog for Mobile SEO in 6 steps?
Here are the main recommendations from Google on how to improve your mobile search results!
1. Start with the essentials: Do a basic technical inspection
Before making any changes to your website’s files, software, or services, it is important to perform a basic check.
SEO success rests on these pillars, so don’t overlook them.
Below you will find a checklist of the main factors that can directly influence the speed, performance, stability, and even the ranking of your site in searches:
- Hosting service: make sure the provider has a good reputation in the market and the plan selected meets all the needs of your site;
- Content manager: give preference to robust platforms or software that are already consolidated in the market, such as WordPress;
- SSL certificate: Google understands that HTTPS addresses are used in secure mobile sites and therefore gives them priority in the search ranking;
- Image optimization: remove non-essential files, compress images, configure descriptions, and give preference to lighter file formats;
- Code optimization: use plugins or hire professionals to remove non-essential snippets of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript code from your pages;
- Tags for mobile: ensure the insertion of special HTML tags such as the “viewport” (asks the browser to adjust the screen to the mobile version) and “Hreflang” (informs that the site has different versions).
2. Performance: Optimize your website to ensure the highest possible speed
The most important thing for mobile navigation is speed, since we need to account for potential instability in connections and limited services. The solution is to focus on the essentials.
There are other procedures that can help improve your site’s agility in loading information, in addition to the measures listed in the previous topic.
It is important to first check your site’s performance using Google PageSpeed Insights or other testing platforms.
The two main factors analyzed by the tool are the FCP and the FID:
- FCP (First content display): time required for the first element of the page to be displayed on the screen;
- FID (Input Latency): the delay between the user’s first interaction with some element of the page and the browser’s response.
In the first case, we only need one element to appear on the screen for the user to confirm that the page is loading.
It can be interesting to use themes or layouts that deliver the content in separate blocks.
When a site is loading slowly and only displays a white screen or a loading icon, people may think the site is broken and decide to leave.
We face similar consequences in the second situation when the pages take a very long time to load. The speed of your site is crucial in demonstrating agility and responsiveness to users.
Besides giving you an evaluation of your website’s speed, PageSpeed also provides specific tips to make your pages load faster. Check it out!
3. UX (User Experience): Focus on the user experience
When we think about navigation on smartphones and tablets, it is just as important to have a pleasant, agile, and intuitive experience as it is on desktops. However, there are some peculiarities to keep in mind when using these devices.
Other than speed, there are other aspects of User Experience that should be considered when building a website.
Visually clean
After fully reviewing the options and data displayed to the user, remove anything that is unnecessary.
Display only relevant information and settings on each page or section, and keep the space between clickable elements appropriate.
Flat Design
Digital interfaces have completely abandoned skeuomorphism, instead using 3D resources to create realistic surfaces and objects.
The current trend is flat design, which uses simple shapes and solid colors to create interfaces that are clear and concise.
Quick access
Try to reduce the number of steps your users need to take to reach your site’s content and functions.
Users want to be able to find what they need without having to go through a lot of extra pages, so it is important to have a direct path from the homepage to the content. Additionally, it is helpful to reduce the amount of typing that is required.
Appropriate fonts
The following text should be paraphrased: This item refers to the concept of responsiveness: your site should automatically adjust the font size to the device on which it is being displayed.
The text can be further improved by using highlighted features such as larger sections and bold or special backgrounds. This will make the user experience more enjoyable and intuitive.
4. Local SEO: Insert your site in local searches
Local search is another factor to consider when studying mobile user behavior.
Google is a way for people to search for companies and professionals.
Most smartphone searches are done with the intention of finding local businesses or professionals.
A study revealed that most consumers search for information on the Internet before making purchases, whether online or in physical stores.
Google My Business is a platform that allows businesses to register for free and be listed in Google’s search results. The benefits of this are that businesses will have their listings shown ahead of others in the same area, making it more likely for customers to find them.
Your profile can include photos, contact information, the URL to your website, and more!
5. Voice searches: Prepare your content for all types of search
Although voice searches have been available for some time, they have only recently become more common with the rise of virtual assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. This has resulted in a change in how people search for information.
This new SEO trend is not only restricted to smartphones, but Smart TVs, home appliances, and the artificial intelligence devices made available by large technology companies.
The point is that voice searches present some peculiarities:
- They are generally interrogative: questions like “what is”, “what does it mean”, “how to do it”, etc.;
- They usually use long-tail keywords: by suggesting a dialogue, people tend to use more specific terms;
- Used to get immediate solutions: the user who does a voice search expects a quick and practical solution to their doubts;
- Refer to everyday issues: the service is often used to solve routine (less complex) problems.
You should pay special attention to keywords that are used in interrogative phrases when you are researching new keywords for your content. These keywords relate to the everyday doubts of your buyer persona.
There are some specific tools that allow you to discover the most searched questions on Google about a particular subject area, such as AnswerThePublic.com.
Despite the existence of newer Digital Marketing planning platforms, the older platforms such as Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush are still the best options.
6. Use AMP technology
AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages.
The aim of the open-source project is to improve the performance of Internet sites, which is poor in general. The project is promoted by large content publishers and technology companies, including Google.
The AMP pages present three important configurations:
- AMP HTML: which is nothing more than optimized HTML code with restrictions and extensions that improve their overall performance;
- AMP JS: which maintains the rendering of asynchronous page elements so that the loading of any item does not harm or block the display of another;
- Google AMP Cache: an optional function that requests the storage of AMP HTML pages in Google’s own cache, speeding up the display of content from access and search results.
When a user clicks on a search result with a link to a page configured with AMP, it is directed to the page’s more simplified version.
If you are using a browser that allows it, an option with a link to the original content will be displayed at the top of the site.
You can check if this feature is active by going to the address of this page you are reading on our blog. If you are using your smartphone, it probably is already active.
Applications are able to rank in Google search results in a similar way to a Universal result. If an app is ranking well in the app store, it is likely to be pulled into a normal search result. With the launch of Google’s new mobile application marketplace Campfire, as well as the Android Marketplace and the AppStore, it is expected that this will happen even more, both in mobile and traditional results. When a user clicks on the link in the search results, it will open the AppStore on their phone or iTunes on a traditional computer. Having applications that rank well in the application marketplaces is important for driving downloads, but it is can also be a strategy to push competitors down in traditional search results, like videos or images that rank in Universal results might do.
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