If you haven’t given mobile SEO much thought you are not alone. For so long we’ve all been conditioned to focus on desktop visitors, but things have really changed. Around the world consumers are spending more time than ever using their mobile devices to access the internet.
The recent Australian Communications and Media Authority report that was released in February 2020 showed that Australians are increasingly reliant on mobile phones to get online with 87% accessing the internet over their phone compared with 69% for laptops.
With mobile playing such a huge role in digital content consumption, here’s a few tips to ensure you don’t fall victim to the change.
WHAT IS MOBILE SEO?
First things first. Mobile SEO refers to the practice of optimising your site for mobile search engine queries originating from mobile devices. By making sure your content through your site is optimised for mobile you have a much better chance to rank for mobile search. Common design features of a website that is optimised for mobile can include things likes a single column layout, easy navigation that is designed for thumbs, smaller image file sizes on the mobile version of the website (compared to desktop) and large images with plenty of white space around them for those of us with large fingers.
WHY IS MOBILE SEO SO IMPORTANT?
Google has made it clear many several times over the past few years that they reward sites which meet their standards for mobile friendliness. The world’s most widely used search engine started rolling out its mobile-first indexing of the web in July of 2018, meaning that Google will now use the mobile version of a web page “for indexing and ranking, to better help – primarily mobile – users find what they’re looking for. While Google claimed the mobile-friendly indexing wouldn’t directly impact how content is ranked, it did note that having a site’s mobile-friendly content indexed in this new fashion will likely help the site “perform better” in mobile search results.
Mobile is also driving presale searches with Google’s own research showing that Almost 9 in 10 smartphone users are not absolutely certain of the specific brand they want to buy when looking for information online. (Google, 2019)
On Cyber Monday 2019, $9.2 billion USD was generated, with 54% of visitors coming from mobile devices, while around 33% purchases on their mobile device, up over 40% from the year before. (see report)
What does all this mean for businesses operating online? Both your Google search engine rankings and your sales could suffer if your website is not fully optimised for mobile.
HOW CAN YOU FIND OUT IF YOUR WEBSITE IS OPTIMISED FOR MOBILE?
You can use this handy tool above from Google itself to test how mobile-friendly your website currently is at https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly .
When it comes to converting traffic from social sources into leads and customers on your website, if your site is not mobile optimised you are going to frustrate your visitor and potentially lose them before they get a chance to convert on your landing page.
TIPS FOR OPTIMISING YOUR SITE FOR MOBILE AND CONVERSIONS
There are a lot of different factors to consider when optimising your website for mobile, however here are 4 simple steps you can take now to ensure you don’t lose any potential customers coming to your site via mobile.
1. CHECK YOUR SPEED
If you’ve been reading our blog you’ll know that when Google rolled out its ‘Speed Update’, it also announced that page speed would become a ranking factor for mobile searches.
Therefore you need to be mindful that there is no point doing an awesome job with your social media activity and driving traffic to your website, if visitors get there and bounce straight away because your site simply doesn’t measure up. There are many ways you can improve your web page speed. We outline a number of these in our recent article on how to optimise your website for speed.
2. USER-FRIENDLY FORMS
Forms are one of the main catalysts for conversion on web pages. However, oftentimes forms are much longer than our visitors want them to be. And because of these limitations, visitors will likely turn to another website that doesn’t require such a heavy form experience. So, when creating your enquiry forms or other kind of lead generation forms on your website, keep the number of fields to a minimum. Consider which fields are essential for obtaining the information that you require from the customer. The key is to make your forms easy and quick to fill out as possible. You may also need to consider the design of the form and ensure it is optimised for mobile. If it is difficult to enter text into a form on a mobile device because the form fields are simply too small, most people will give up within a few seconds.
Marketing automation tools like HubSpot and Marketo possess a feature called Progressive profiling. Every time a lead fills out a form, you are progressively collecting valuable new information about them while keeping your forms short and easy to complete. This enables you to build up the amount of information, or intelligence, you collect about your individual leads without causing more friction in the conversion process.
3. CREATE A SIMPLE CALL-TO-ACTION
When creating calls to action (CTA’s) for your website, think about how they will appear on different devices for people clicking through from social on their mobile devices. You may not want the most visually heavy design as that could be distracting on the small screen of a mobile device or tablet. But you do want a button or image with text that’s easy to read.
Make sure your CTA’s are clear, to-the-point phrases that get your message across quickly with only a few words. Think about the size of any call to action buttons too and how large they appear on mobile devices.
4. MAKE YOUR PHONE NUMBER CLICKABLE
When someone picks up their mobile phone, they are going to take an action. Whether it’s opening an app, searching for a company, or simply texting a friend, they are much more action-oriented when on their phone versus a tablet or desktop computer.
With this in mind, consider how you can get your potential mobile visitors to the point of conversion faster, and make it as easy as possible to do that. One technique is making sure your phone number is clickable on your website. By doing so, your customers do not have to copy and paste or memorise your phone number – they just click on it and are instantly dialing.
NEED HELP WITH MOBILE SEO?
With over 65% of all searches on google conducted on a mobile device it’s absolutely CRITICAL that your site is optimised for mobile SEO. Luckily, it’s not too late. If you would like some assistance with optimising your site for mobile, or any of our SEO services get in touch with us at hello@balmeragency.com.au.
