Need to learn more about smartphone and mobile SEO best practices? Let’s start with a few statistics:
According to an infographic from Microsoft Tag, 51% of smartphone users are more likely to buy from a retailer with a mobile specific web site, however:only 4.8% of retailers have a mobile web site.
A recent study by Google, “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users” reports 77% of smartphone users visit search engine websites followed by social networks. And nine out of ten smartphone searches results in an action (purchasing, visiting a business, etc.). Mobile use is growing faster than all of Google’s internal predictions, with YouTube seeing 200 million mobile playbacks a day, according to Eric Schmidt.
To capture the market, marketers and advertisers are increasingly allocating budget to mobile. In fact, eMarketer estimates total mobile advertising spending in the US will reach $1.1 billion this year, which is up 48% over 2010. Mobile search is forecasted to account for up to 10 percent of search budgets with Google capturing 97% of that market.
Common SEO tactics that should be incorporated into all mobile sites include:
- Appropriate Keywords in Headlines and Text: Consumers use mobile for more focused and task-oriented searches (i.e. for a specific location or product). This is different from how most people search from a desktop computer. By understanding consumer behavior, brands can anticipate queries and incorporate key search terms into page text, increasing detection from search engines.
- Relevant Page Titles and Accurate Page Descriptions: Page titles are one of the first factors mobile browsers use to determine where a page will show in results. Similar to traditional SEO, it is important that these titles reflect the terms that people use to search, increasing the likelihood that the site will appear relevant and receive better page rankings.
- Outbound Links: Despite less real estate associated with mobile screens, incorporating outbound links to relevant sources provides a more complete user experience and associates the mobile site with other trusted brands.
- Standard Coding: The wide variety of operating systems supported by mobile makes it extremely important for brands to follow valid HTML coding. Browsers parse through HTML code to determine search relevance. Any errors or invalid coding will result in broken pages and a lower ranking. Sites built in accordance to standards will ensure a consistent experience across all devices.
You may have heard the “one URL to rule them all” line or read Duane Forrester of Bing’s plea to use one URL for each piece of content and thought that mobile URLs would be detrimental to link equity. It’s reasonable to think that duplicate content would cause problems with canonicalization and ranking as it does in desktop search for things like printable URLs and indexed session IDs. Some have recommended responsive design as the best way to build a mobile web site in order to avoid this split link equity. There are good reasons to use responsive web design, and 12 of the top 100 sites have made their sites responsive. However, as 71 of the top 100 traffic generating sites in Google use mobile URLs, it’s unlikely that this is a serious issue for ranking in Google.
