In this article, we will try to educate you on all the important points for SEO and website optimization in mobiles. First of all, we need to get to know the exact definition of mobile SEO and look at Google’s new algorithms for ranking in the results on mobile.
The number of searches made by mobile devices is growing rapidly, and now nearly 56% of searches on Google are made through smartphones.
This trend is growing dramatically, and it can be said that in the years to come, Google search will be mostly used through mobile devices. The popularity of smartphone users has been so high that Google has introduced proprietary algorithms such as Mobilegeddon for review and website mobile indexing.
In the near future, Google intends to use the Mobile First Index algorithm to rank websites as the main criterion for content analysis and ranking in search results.
What is mobile SEO?
Mobile SEO is all about doing our best to optimize the mobile version of the website and improve the user experience, which will lead to better results in Google results.
These activities will also be focused on designing a mobile version, using techniques such as Responsive Design or Dynamic Serving, and improving the user experience, such as speeding up the website and easy access to the content.
Note that according to Google, a mobile device is the equivalent of a smartphone and tablets are in a completely different category. Of course, our goal is SEO for all devices and users, but what is discussed in this article is dedicated to smartphones.
Google algorithms to determine your status on mobile searches
Currently, 95% of mobile searches come from the Google search engine. As a result, paying attention to its standards and algorithms is very important for a better place and better visitor.
Mobilegeddon algorithm
In 2015, Google officially introduced its Mobile-Friendly algorithm known as Mobilegeddon.
By introducing this algorithm, the actual ranking of results on the desktop and mobile became different, which means that when you search for a keyword on a desktop, you might see different results from the same phrase on a mobile.
Until now, the Mobile First Index was a positive and valuable added value with little impact on you, but then Google found a lot of websites that were not suitable for mobile display and their position in search results through Mobiles got reduced
Mobile First Index algorithm
With the continued use of mobile phones and increased searches through them, Google decided to consider more value for the mobile website versions. In fact, people currently browsing in smartphones are in the majority, so they should pay particular attention to their satisfaction.
Before the introduction of the Mobile First Index, if the user searched in a desktop, Google would rank the website’s desktop version, and if it searched through a mobile, the robots will show the website based on the mobile version of their design.
But with the new algorithm, the mobile version of the website is Google’s benchmark for any decision on the website’s worth and worth of the page.
How to optimize the mobile version of the website?
In the first step for mobile SEO, we have to prepare our website for mobile users. If we show the exact presentation of the same content and design of the desktop version on a small page, the performance of the website will significantly decrease.
There are three main ways to design a mobile version of a website.
1. Different addresses for mobile and desktop version
As such, the mobile version of a website can be located in a subdomain such as m.kiuloper.com and by referring to the version by smartphone detection.
The use of this method is outdated because to run it, you have to design two separate versions of your website and have two separate addresses for each page on the website. This will cause many problems, such as creating duplicate content, differences in user experience and … on a mobile device.
2. Use of dynamic service technique
In this way, both mobile and desktop versions of the website are viewed with the same address. Depending on the browser type and screen size, your server detects that the user is logged in with a mobile phone or desktop. Continued from each user, mobile version or desktop will be available to the user with separate encryption.
Using this method, you can manage the resources used in each version and have a completely dedicated and distinct design for each device or screen size.
For example, you might have a slider with a large image in the desktop version but use a simple and vertical image in the mobile version. By doing so, users who have entered the website with a mobile phone no longer need to download the large slider images, which speeds up and improves the user experience.
The main problem with this method is that it increases the programming costs of the website. With any change in the content of your website, you need to design different scenarios in different sizes, and, of course, with the arrival of handsets of new content, you must make sure you created the right version of the pages of the website.
3. Responsive Design
In designing a responsive website, both web addresses and HTML pages are identical for mobile and desktop and are managed using CSS commands to display content in a variety of sizes.
By doing so, your design costs are relatively low and the impact of the first algorithm of the mobile index will be negligible. Unlike the first method, you have a URL and the possibility of producing duplicate content in different URLs is zero.
Responsive design is currently the best option that Google is advising for websites to do.
Website Optimization techniques for mobiles
In this section, we are working to review the most important techniques available for mobile SEO and offer you the right tools for each one.
1. Improving user experience or Mobile Usability
In the Google Webmaster Wizard, you have created a section for reviewing the Mobile Usability of a website, which provides a report on the status of your pages on mobile. Any error Google sees on your website’s pages will be shown to you in this space.
The information contained in the result of search through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool for each page of your website is collected separately. You can also analyze a page from your website using the tool and check its status from Google’s perspective.
This tool offers a variety of suggestions about the design of the website’s responsiveness and user experience. For example, if a button in the mobile has a decent size (smaller than the touch of a finger) it will notify you.
Other factors such as font size, color scheme and…, to some extent, are reviewed by the Mobile-Friendly Test tool, which illustrates the importance of user experience and its impact on mobile devices.
Three important tips to improve mobile performance
I) Do not restrict Google access to website resources
To see how the overall display and structure of the website, Google Robots page should access all the files on the page, including CSS and JS. Restricting any of these files to Google’s robot will cause the actual page’s view to be hidden from Google’s perspective, and does not recognize its relevance.
II) Do not use pop-ups
Google does not have a good relationship with pop-ups. Because the user enters a page with a large image or box in front of him and prevents direct access to the content of the page. Using a pop-up, especially in the mobile version, is a bad thing for your SEO.
III) Do not hide the original content on mobile
Many designers conceal portions of the page in smaller mobile versions, with virtually eliminating the content from the user and the Google Robot. It is suggested that as much as possible, all content sections of the page are also available in the mobile version.
2. Optimize the website speed for mobile phones
Another Google tool is called Page Speed Insights, which investigates the speed of pages on mobile and desktop. Currently, the system for analyzing and rating this tool is different on desktop and mobile, and it may display two different numbers for one page from a website.
Check the website speed on mobile and its impact on SEO. In this tool, special attention is paid to the time when the first view of the website was displayed to the user. This means that Google suggests that you first show what is needed at first glance and then load the rest of the sections.
To do this, using optimization techniques like Eliminate Render-Blocking JavaScript and CSS, compressing images, reducing server response time, reducing the number of requests sent to the server, and so on, will have a huge impact on your speed on a mobile device.
3. Improve user access to your content
How to display content on mobile and desktop should be different and adapt to the space available on the layout page and the dimensions of each section.
You can improve the readability of users by changing the dimensions of the images and the size of the fonts. You may even be completely mobile friendly, according to Google, but the user can not read the text and access the various sections.
Another common problem is the use of large images at the start of the page, which in the mobile version actually reduces the user’s usage and forces the user to scroll to display the content.
Google suggests that the user at first glance needs to contain at least the title of the page.
Use the empty space technique in website design. The design of the mobile version is especially important because it enables users to correctly understand the interactions between different sections of the page and have no difficulty studying each section.
4. Use of AMP
AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. This technique has recently been introduced by Google and is rapidly becoming popular.
In this way, each page of your website will have an AMP version in another address, linked to the motherboard using the canonical tag. AMP is practically trying to display the content of a page based on Google’s defined mobile standards.
The AMP version information is indexed by Google and displayed on the Google results page directly to the user.
Pages that use AMP features will have a greater chance of gaining a place in Google’s results, and with the AMP icon displaying, they will be able to attract users and an increase in CTR.
5. Optimization of display in mobile search results
Typically, Google searches for up to 69 characters per title, but it’s even up to 78 in the mobile. In other words, displaying the titles of pages in Mobile has more space and allowing you to better target your CTR.
In addition to the above, the use of standard marking techniques, this will allow additional information such as star rating, AMP, image slider, etc. to appear in your website’s search results. Each of these sections can have a huge impact on increasing visitor performance and improving your rank.
Conclusion
Paying attention to the mobile device and spending time and money for it was a very obsessive past, but today it has become one of your most important tasks when optimizing your website.
If you have not paid attention to the mobile version of your website to this date, it’s best to quickly optimize it and get ready for a near future where 80% of the searches are done by mobile.
If you have an experience in using any of the techniques presented in this article and its impact on your website’s SEO, share it in the comments section.
