The verdict is here: mobile marketing is the new normal and if you haven’t already, it’s time to catch up. The first step to becoming a mobile-friendly business is ensuring that visitors accessing your website through mobile devices have a great experience. 60% of all searches are done through a mobile device, which is causing Google to shift towards ranking websites based on their mobile sites (mobile first SEO). So if you want to show up in couples’ search results on Google, mobile optimization is more important than ever.
To be ready for this shift to mobile-first SEO, it’s important to understand how Google ranks mobile friendliness and what you can do to be in Google’s good books.
3 tips for optimizing your mobile site:
-
Test each page separately
In order to optimize your mobile site, you need think deeper than the landing page. Just because your homepage is mobile friendly, doesn’t mean all pages of your website are mobile friendly. Your site needs to be optimized from start to finish, which means making sure that users have a good experience when they are directed to any part of your website. Moreover, each page should be treated as an entry point since most visits on websites don’t begin with the landing page. Google’s new algorithm is more granular, compared to the past, and will be looking at each page separately to determine how your site will rank in search results.
-
Page speed matters (a lot)
Google wants to ensure a good experience when people click on a website, so they look at your page speed to decide if you are offering a good mobile experience for visitors. The average load time for a mobile page is currently 22 seconds, but research shows that people will click out if it takes more than 3 seconds to load, indicating an imbalance in user expectations. Google offers the free tool PageSpeed Insights which reports on the real-world performance of a page and provides suggestions on how that page may be improved — check it out to put your website to the test.
-
Remember: Google operates in real time
Previously, every few months, Google would crawl through web pages and collect data that would deem websites either up to standards or spam, which would then determine the search rankings for these pages. Prior to Google’s latest update, even if you improved your website you would still have to wait a few months until Google re-indexed in order to have any penalties on your website lifted.
But with the new update, Google’s systems are operating in real time. With its latest release Google crawls and re-indexes pages as changes are made. This means you can make improvements to your website and see results in your search rankings quickly.
With Google’s mobile-first indexing rolling out, mobile optimization is the biggest and most critical topic in SEO. It is now easier to understand where your website stands and how to improve it, and as competition increases, differentiating yourself with a well functioning website can help boost you to the top of search results. So get out there and improve your mobile optimization!
These tips originally appeared in WeddingWire’s Webinar “Master Mobile Marketing” with Sonny Ganguly, WeddingWire’s Chief Marketing Officer.
The post 3 Ways to Improve Your Mobile Website appeared first on WeddingWireEDU Blog.
