9 Mobile SEO Tips Everyone Needs to Use in 2018

Today, every business owner should learn a few mobile SEO tips as the majority of internet users browse the Web using mobile gadgets. You also shouldn’t forget about Google’s mobile first indexing, which makes this type of optimization even more of a priority. Luckily, Google itself offers a variety of tools you can use for boosting SEO along with other affordable solutions. The trick here is to know which changes will be most efficient in the long run.

9 Mobile SEO Tips That’ll Help you Rock in 2018

1. Use Google Search Console for optimization

The first thing you should master is Google Search Console. It’s your main ally in both understanding the principles of Google bots’ work and optimizing for them. This tool will enable you to monitor and analyze your website’s performance. It will also offer suggestions of helpful webmaster’s resources.

Small business owners who cannot afford a highly-qualified webmaster yet will benefit from the console’s support options and great testing tools. There’s even some education in the art of making Google-friendly websites on offer.

2. Think about changing your hosting

One of the most important mobile SEO tips that are often overlooked is getting your website to a better hosting. You shouldn’t forget that no amount of keyword research and visual optimization will matter if your website crashes more often than not.

When looking for a suitable hosting, look for speed and reliability as well as a generous offering of bandwidth in the offer. You’ll also need to study independent opinions on different providers to assess their actual reliability, for example like this detailed BlueHost review. Focus not on the cost or perks of the package but on the actual needs of your business and how this particular hosting will perform for them.

3. Make your web design even more responsive

Today you need to think of mobile SEO not as an extension of ‘regular’ SEO, but as an entity of its own. This means that you have to design your pages with it in mind, not try to make them fit into mobile gadgets after the website launches.

Learn from Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages initiative and be sure to use the suggestions and solutions it offers. You also need to make sure that every element of your website is responsive and will adjust to the user’s screen quickly and efficiently. This means not only the desktop-to-mobile switch. You also need to remember that mobile gadgets of today differ greatly in screen sizes and resolutions and account for that.

4. Rethink your content marketing strategy

Keyword research isn’t included in mobile SEO tips because it’s the pillar of any SEO. However, filling your pages with the right keywords isn’t enough. You also need to make sure your content comes in the format that’s easy to browse from a smartphone/tablet.

Lists and short paragraphs are a must for texts. You’ll also need to add more well-optimized visuals that will enrich the article. Short posts are best for mobile devices as well as easily-shareable infographics and memes. Be sure to place social media buttons in visible places near them so your visitors can share the piece they like with a single click.

5. Steer away from Flash

No matter what Adobe would like you to believe, Flash Player is a thing of the past. Many modern smartphones do not support it by default. Although there are ways to still run it on such devices, they require quite a bit of tinkering from the users. This means that by using Flash on your website you ‘un-optimize’ it by default.

Now is the time of HTML5 that can ensure great animations and robust mobile optimization opportunities. Please bear in mind that although it’s offered as an alternative to Adobe Flash, HTML5 technology is different. You can’t use the latter to create animations directly. For this you’ll have to use JavaScript or CSS3.

6. Optimize for local SEO

Another one of mobile SEO tips that are often overlooked and underestimated is local marketing optimization. That’s a huge mistake for you to make as the majority of mobile users search for local businesses. This means that optimizing your pages this way will give a huge boost to your organic traffic and conversions.

Note that Google itself shows users local ads 4 out of 5 times. Therefore, its bots are actually geared towards prioritizing local-oriented SEO.

7. Make sure your redirects are set up correctly

It’s ok to have a separate URL for desktop (www.*) and mobile (m.*) websites. Ranking Google bots do not perceive this as an issue as long as those redirects are setup properly. In this case this means they must lead the user to the mobile equivalent of the desktop page.

The most common mistake here is to have all redirects leading to the website’s landing page. However, this forces the user to start over their search of the needed page on your website. Google prioritizes users’ convenience, and so should you when developing your mobile SEO strategy.

8. Watch out for smartphone-only errors

Removing 404 errors and the like is one of the priorities for any business owner as every such experience costs you customers. However, few people realize that some errors are specific only to mobile versions of their websites. The most common example is of a page being redirected incorrectly from the desktop version and ending up 404.

Rigorous testing should identify these issues so you can get them fixed fast. However, it never hurts to double-check, especially if you post videos or other content that might not adjust to mobile easily. Pay special attention to your videos as they often turn out unplayable on mobile even despite correct resizing.

9. Cut down the loading speed as much as possible

About 40% of your visitors will drop your website if it takes over 2 seconds to load. Google bots measure this particular metric so minimizing loading speeds is an essential part of mobile SEO.

Using Accelerated Mobile Pages will help, but you also might need to do some extra compression on ‘heavy’ content pieces, like videos and images. Tools like HTML Compressor and Gzip will help.