Smartphones have changed lives and it has also changed the way Google functions when it comes to search rankings. Nowadays, websites must be mobile friendly so that it ranks higher in Google search. This is called mobile-first indexing. The mobile version of a website is what Google includes in their index and based on which, determines ranking. This is important to understand if you want to understand mobile SEO. There are many SEO services in India, but here are some tips on mobile SEO for beginners.
Build a mobile-friendly site
What’s a mobile-friendly site? Here are some prerequisites- it should load quickly, it should not require pinching or zooming, and easily readable and navigable. There are three ways to configure your mobile site:
- Separate URL: With this setup, there will be two URLs for the site- the desktop version and mobile version. However, this isn’t used much anymore because it is difficult to manage. Mobile sites have a host of SEO issues. They need multiple URLs for every content and requires complicated text.
- Dynamic serving: It involves the same URL but different HTML/CSS, depending on the device it is being viewed on. However, dynamic serving tends to show desktop version to mobile users. Also, a different version of content needs to be constantly developed for new devices. If not, it might show a horrible version on your device.
- Responsive design: With this configuration, the website’s layout and content respond automatically to the specific mobile device. It doesn’t need a separate URL or different HTML. It is the most preferred one in terms of SEO-friendliness and is very user friendly.
Optimize for local
According to Google, around 76% of searches are for something nearby. This is a very important factor to take note to get your business on the high rank of local searches. For this, you can sign up for Google My Business, create local oriented content and build local links, make sure contact info is always correct and up-to-date, and encourage customer reviews.
Optimize voice search
With mobile devices reeling towards AI assistance on mobile devices, voice search has become highly popular. You can do this by using long tail keywords as users usually speak out their queries. Consider why, where, when, what, and how when you form your long tail keywords. You can also find tools to help you find these keywords.
Use mobile SEO tools
To ensure that your site is working well on mobile devices, there are many tools that will help you analyze its performance.
- Search Analytics: this tool helps in finding out which words are used by users while searching something. Thus, you can also find out if you are using the right words or not.
- Fetch as Google: If you want to know how Google sees your page, this is a tool to use. You will come to know what Googlebot sees and accordingly, make changes to your website, if any.
- Mobile Usability: With this tool, you can find out if mobile users are having troubles with your site. You can use Mobile Usability Test on Google Search Console.
Let Google crawl everything
Do not block Googlebot from accessing Javascript, CSS, or other important parts of your site’s code. If you do so, Googlebot will not be able to tell whether it’s mobile-friendly or not. This will hamper your ranking in the mobile-first index.
In conclusion, these tips will help you increase the performance of your site on search engine. SEO of any type requires thorough knowledge and technicality. There are many search engine marketing agencies that can help you optimize your mobile site.