There is a lot of chatter all over about the rise and rise of mobile phones, and how it will all affect the SEO world. Google has already stated how you should have mobile-friendly websites if you are to stay in contention. So many brands these days have a mobile version of their original website. However, while browsing through these mobile sites, you will find several glaring mistakes. It is not enough that you cater to the mobile market during SEO, you should do it right to make the right impact.
The most common mistake is definitely the time it takes for a mobile site to upload. Stats say that 53% of your visitors will leave your site if the page doesn’t show up within 3 seconds! Yet, you end up uploading heavy pages. Ideally, you should have mobile pages that upload within the span of a single second. There are various ways in which you can cut down on the time it takes for a mobile page to load up. For example, cut down on 301 redirects and streamline the CSS and Java scripts. Optimizing the images on the website will help you too. Also you can start with AMP (Accelerated mobile pages)
The second common mistake is to block the access of Google. Often, mobile site owners end up blocking Google’s algorithms from entering their CSS scripts and HTML pages, including images. You have to treat the algorithms are your average user. Let them have unhindered access. Only then can your website grab rankings higher up in Google’s pecking order.
Popup ads in the mobile version of a website can be quite a pain in the wrong place. You need to restrict the use of popup ads and interstitials. This will give a more transparent access of the mobile site to your users. People don’t like wasting time on popups anyway and they almost never click on them. You will rarely get any business revenue out of these popup ads, so why tamper the user experience of visitors which will get you brownie points with Google?
Videos are the future of digital marketing. People watch videos across devices, like mobiles, tablets or computer screens. Mobile site owners should make optimum use of videos and other multimedia content. During this screening process, throw out videos that are too heavy on the bandwidth and consume uploading time. Some videos don’t play well across devices. You should work on them to increase their flexibility or remove them from the site. Keeping them will burden the site unnecessarily.
Rich snippets can give you a clear heads-up on SERPs, even in the mobile domain. Correct, accurate and precise answers to queries always impress Google. You can use schema.org to provide answers to questions that are frequently asked in your domain of work. By using the markups of Schema or Structured Data, you can get yourself the cream of SEO juice in the form of organic CTR.
Not offering the coordinates of mobile viewports is another common mistake. Mobile device users will not be able to view pages on their mobile devices in the correct aspect ratio if you don’t provide viewports in the meta tags. You should not use viewports that are inflexible and make the site viewable only on some particular devices. Additionally, if the viewport coordinates are set at a bare minimum, users with smaller mobile screens can barely see anything! You should address these issues if you want to be in the good books of Google.
Finally, a word on the mobile website designing needs to be said. Design the mobile version of the site on a different template than its desktop version. Sites look completely different on mobiles as opposed to desktops. The same kind of fonts or color, or even the use of the screen space, varies. What looks spacious on desktop screens may look cluttered on mobile devices. Ensure that your mobile version comply with the visual aesthetics for Google to take notice.
Develop and optimize the mobile version of your website with as much care and effort as the desktop edition. That should take care of most issues!
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