Small businesses and startups are leveraging their digital storefronts to promote their products and services and drive more customers. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a type of digital marketing effort businesses use to rank higher in search engines, boosting their online visibility.
According to GSMA Intelligence, approximately 5.48 billion individuals use mobile phones today. This shows that many customers browse products and services through mobile gadgets.
Thus, startups should step up in terms of mobile-friendly SEO strategies for improved user experience and potentially increase overall sales and conversions.
To explore current mobile-friendly SEO strategies you can employ in your business, here’s a guide you can refer to.
Mobile Local SEO Optimization
Mobile Local SEO Optimization is optimizing your website for local traffic, brand awareness, and visibility. Local seo tasks include optimizing your Google Business profile, finding local keywords, and creating locally relevant content.
In the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, 75% of consumers use Google to look for businesses. The number of users using “store open near me near me” has grown by over 250% in two years.
With the biggest SEO companies in Australia concentrated in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane, 78% of Google Maps mobile searches lead to in-store purchases. You can boost your Brisbane business with expert SEO services among other cities and towns in the country.
To give you an idea of how SEO services work on local SEO, you should do local keyword research to help people find your business. For paid search campaigns, make use of Google Keyword Planner.
Of course, you must also optimize your Google Business profile by setting detailed business hours and uploading photos regularly.
Understand the Mobile Landscape
As of June 2023, mobile devices are accountable for 53% of website traffic. Around the world, 92.3% of internet users are accessing the internet through their mobile phones.
With this data, Google has launched mobile-first indexing, which means that the search engine uses the content’s mobile version for ranking and indexing.
It’s important to note that it’s called mobile-first and not mobile-only. This means that your website will still be indexed and ranked by Google, but without a mobile-friendly user experience, you might suffer from dropped rankings.
Key SEO strategies you can employ include equivalent meta titles and meta descriptions in desktop and mobile versions, but you can optimize the mobile version with a shorter word count of the titles.
You must also include Twitter cards and OpenGraph tags in the mobile version for social metadata.
Optimize Website Speed
Google didn’t release any guidelines for the mobile speed, but for the sake of SEO, you must also work on this aspect. The first thing you must do is to assess your mobile speed.
Your mobile speed shouldn’t exceed 400 milliseconds since research indicates that website users will likely leave if the loading speed overextends this limit.
You can improve mobile speed by reducing page weight. Limit your page weight to 1,000 kilobytes. You can also put the search box above the fold on your mobile site to encourage visitors to begin their journey by searching.
Mobile Keyword Research
Mobile keywords are likely shorter than desktop ones since users don’t want to type long sentences on their mobile screens. Moreover, mobile queries are more local compared to desktop queries. You have to prioritize user intent to come up with good keywords successfully.
When searching for mobile keywords, start with determining what keywords you currently rank for. If a keyword is doing well, leverage and create more content around that keyword.
You should also consider that these days, many users rely on hands-free communication, which means that you have to pay attention to spoken keywords that are more conversational.
Create Mobile-Friendly Content
An average user would spend three minutes or less reading online content. This means you must start with a strong, impactful introduction for every content you publish on your site.
Additionally, you must use white spaces strategically for better readability of content. Avoid cluttered layouts and extreme elements.
You should also place helpful and relevant call-to-actions (CTAs) through your content. Since mobile users demand concise and helpful information, placing CTAs strategically can help boost conversions.
Also, add images and videos to supplement texts. This way, you can boost reader retention and improve your search rankings.
Mobile User Experience and Engagement
To strengthen customer relationships, invest in mobile user experience and engagement. You should enable multiple interactions with touchpoints such as the web, chat, social media, and emails, among many others.
To effectively do this, you must invest in a strong CRM system, offer customers a well-designed self-service experience, and personalize content.
Large businesses use Artificial Intelligence (AI), data, and personalization to drive mobile marketing. With all these, you can improve your customer service experience through virtual assistants, chatbots, and agents.
Mobile SEO Audit
To audit mobile SEO, you must first adopt a responsive website design to boost traffic and engagement potential. In addition, look into improving your mobile speed, as we have already mentioned. Next, check “mobile usability” in Google Search Console.
You can also find many mobile-friendliness checker tools online to evaluate if your optimization process is executed well.
Final Thoughts
To guarantee a seamless and engaging user experience on mobile, you must follow the seven mobile-friendly SEO strategies we’ve shared here. With these hacks, your site will pass Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test and dominate SERPs in no time!
