Mobile Optimization – Digital Marketing Best Practices

Until recently, websites have performed well on search engines and gained good rankings even without caring about mobile optimization. The scenario is about to be changed, or, have changed now. In fact, major search engine Google has put in place a new algorithm and technique that necessitate websites to do optimization keeping in mind the growing number of mobile users.

Rankings of course would impact in case sites fail to stick to the mobile optimization, which means a substantial loss of customers and revenue from internet. With this, it also becomes clear that mobile SERPs (search engine results pages) would now depend on the mobile-friendliness of a website.

As the number of mobile users worldwide has already touched a staggering 1.5 billion mark, this optimization seems a decision to benefit the people using mobile devices to access websites. There is definitely a new challenge for websites, but they should take it as an opportunity to serve the customers in the way search engines wish them too.

How to know that a site is mobile friendly?

• When it displays content well on the phone
• When its content is easily readable on screen
• When it does not need zooming or pinching
• When it gives ease and simplicity of navigation with finger
• When it does not trouble with slow mobile pages and load time
• When it keeps users away from irrelevant cross-links

How to optimize a site for mobile?

It takes few simple steps to optimize your website for mobile.

You can follow these:

• Choose a responsive design for your site where the URL and HTML stay the same
• Update the website code and you can have html templates for static sites
• Never ignore mobile usability issues
• Never block page resources
• Use legible font sizes and adjust or size the content to viewport
• Viewport has to be configured
• Tell Google when the content is served in dynamic way (via Vary HTTP header)
• Tell search engine when use separate URLs for desktop and mobile versions
• Examine the page speed of your site and make it respond faster
• CSS, JAVASCRIPT and images have to be visible to Google
• Never block page resources
• Avoid mobile redirects if possible

Some helpful facts about mobile optimization

• Native mobile apps can also be indexed by Google App Indexing API
• Google will crawl the API not the site
• Better rankings would be achieved for content optimized as per user location
• Apps with descriptive content would get better rankings
• Positive reviews from app review sites help a lot

Conclusion

Out of a total 1.5 billion mobile web users, around 80% use a smartphone and search websites for various purposes. It’s right time to jump in the pool by making your site mobile-ready and reap rich rewards.

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