Are you prepared for a mobile world? While in our personal lives we have made the shift effortlessly, we are making the shift a bit more slowly with our business websites. You may already be taking advantage of mobile advertising and using text messages with your marketing, but is your website ready for mobile device users?

I don’t mean having a mobile or responsive site; I want you to think about how people use a phone or tablet to find and navigate through your website. With mobile-first indexing and Google’s emphasis on mobile devices, we need to think mobile when developing search and SEO strategies.

In a mobile-first world, page speed, ease of navigation, voice search and the ability to connect will only become more important.

Upcoming Google Algorithm Changes

When Google’s Nathan Johns was addressing SMX West recently, he let the audience know that a key algorithm update would be rolling out soon. Already a ranking a factor, page will speed will have a larger focus when this change is released. It may not seem like much of a change, but it will make a large impact in a mobile-first world.

Images slow your site down, even with today’s internet speeds, and for a while now, we have compressing images and using smaller file sizes to help. That step is not enough, however; instead, we need to look at reducing the number of images and scripts that load, which isn’t just deleting a photo or two off a page.

Do you have a large slider? Not only does the image take time to load, but also the script needed to run the slider takes time. Add that script in with the one needed to track your visitors for analytics and the one that allows social sharing and the one for your CDN. Now, the browser is loading various different aspects both on and off the page.

Minifying scripts will need to have a larger emphasis in your SEO strategy. The more bells and whistles that we add to site, the more we are slowing it down. There are several programs available that can help you minify your scripts, especially if you are using a CMS such as WordPress.

You only have seven seconds before most people will abandon the page, and we even less patient on a mobile device. Search engines know this fact. That reason is why page speed will be important in a mobile first index.

Prepare for Voice Search

Not only is Google preparing to emphasize page speed, but it is also looking at voice search. While the use of voice search is reaching its toddler years, its adoption rate with users is growing significantly. As the technology improves, we are growing more comfortable using Siri, Cortana or Alexa to help us search the internet.

How the search engines will factor this area into the search results is still a gray area. Johns even mentioned that there isn’t much data that he could share about specific voice search usage except that it was growing. Bing, on the other hand, has been more open about their research on voice search, but even with them, you can’t get specific keyword data about voice search usage although they do recommend using modified broad-match keywords in your keyword mix in a PPC campaign.

Even with the search engines still catching up to the growth, voice search shouldn’t be neglected. One day it will be the primary way we search on the phone, and the key difference is we ask a digital assistant questions or give her simple commands. Therefore, an emphasis on longer-tail keywords is important when thinking mobile.

How to Think Mobile

Thinking mobile is easier than you think as you already use your phone to view and search on the internet. When you view your site on your phone, how does it look? Is it friendly? Can you find information easily? Is your mobile site a scaled down version of your desktop site with missing information? Is there too much information to sort through?

Answering those questions is a great start at revamping your SEO strategy whether you have a mobile specific site or a responsive one. Use your answers as a road map to begin your mobile first optimizations. Make a list of your pain points as they are your customer’s pain points with the mobile site too. Then, you can begin to tackle them.

Another step is to think about your own search queries. When we type one, we tend to short, but when speaking we use full sentences most of the time. Think about how you would search for your business and services with a digital assistant; would you use phrases like these:

• “Find licensed plumbers near me?”
• “Where can I find a auger to unclog my drain?”
• “What is the closest Thai Restaurant?”

If so, incorporate those queries to help you as your plan your SEO strategy.

Steps to Get Ready for a Mobile-First World

There are a few things you can do to help you now.

• If you are not using a CDN (Content Distribution Network), look into using one for your images at the least. A service like Cloudflare will help you cache your site to make it act like a more static page to load faster. There are WordPress plugins that will do the same. A cached page will load significantly faster.
• Consider a responsive site, instead of a mobile-specific site. With a responsive site, your website will scale to the size of the screen, allowing you to have one site for all devices.
• If you are neglecting a mobile site, stop doing so.
• Streamline your site. Most visitors scan your site. Use bullet points or lists as much as possible. Try to do more with less.
• Use graphics smartly and sparingly. Avoid content in images as much as possible. A useful info graphic is ok once in a while.
• Use social media for your business. While it doesn’t help with rankings, it does provide links back to your site to help you get more traffic. Plus, we primarily use social media on our phones.

Get the Help You Need

Are you overwhelmed in keeping your SEO strategy up-to-date? Do you find you don’t have enough time to focus on SEO like you should? Get the help you need today so you can focus on your business. Use the contact form in the side bar to contact us today!