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It’s no secret that the use of mobile devices is growing at a staggering rate. Mobile SEO is on the mind of many businesses and website owners. Search Engine Mobile optimization is the process of ensuring that visitors who access your site from mobile devices have an experience optimized for the device. Google’s latest focus on mobile-friendly search should really come as no surprise, as every year people spend more and more time glued to their smartphones, tablets, and now their wearable devices. What’s more of a surprise, is that many businesses waited until now to begin optimizing their online practices, content, and websites for the mobile explosion.

What is Mobile Optimization?

Every year people spend more and more time on their mobile devices and tablets, but many websites still aren't designed to account for different screen sizes and load times. Mobile optimization takes a look at site design, site structure, page speed, and more to make sure you're not inadvertently turning mobile visitors away. (source: Moz.com)

Why Is Mobile SEO Important for my Business?

Before you decide how important mobile is to your business you’ll want to take a step back and do a little research using Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to answer the following questions: (read google mobile seo ranking factors)

• What % of traffic to the website on a mobile device, and how much of that is from organic search?
• What pages are being served for mobile searches?
• What are the engagement statistics for mobile visitors?
• How do the engagement metrics for mobile compare to the desktop visits?

You may have a low volume of mobile traffic because your demographic doesn’t use mobile devices to search or it could be that your products and services aren’t something people conduct mobile searches for.

Don’t jump to conclusions about the traffic and write off the need to optimize your mobile web presence, take a look at the mobile experience. If it’s bad, you may have simply trained your customers not to visit you on a smart phone or tablet. If your download speeds are slow or Google sees a lot of pogo sticking (clicking on a search result and coming right back to the search page) your site may be downgraded and not showing up in mobile search results.

Mobile-Friendly Website SEO Best Practices

The following are mobile-friendly SEO best practices and considerations to keep in mind while optimizing your website and content for mobile. Take note that not all of these elements are correct for every business; you should focus on the tactics that best align with the current state of your mobile efforts.

Page Speed matters 

Download speed is a ranking factor. More importantly, if your pages don’t download quickly (especially on mobile) no one is going sit around and wait for them. They will quickly move on to the next link in the search results.

Go Responsive and Don’t Look Back

I have been a major proponent of building all websites as mobile responsive for several years now. What does this mean? A mobile responsive website senses the screen dimensions of the device fetching the content and adjusts how the website is displayed based on those dimensions. Check out the Return On Now website on a standard browser and see how it morphs when you change the view within the browser window. This is how responsive websites typically operate.

There are really only two other viable options for mobile sites – dynamic websites that serve up different content on different platforms, or separate mobile websites that require you to manage multiple web properties. Both of these are problematic for various reasons.

Dynamic websites, while good for user experience, can become a problem if they serve up different content to search engine spiders than they do for other users. Any good SEO will tell you that this is a ticket to being labeled a spammer. No one wants that label placed on their website.

As for separate mobile websites, those come with a great deal of overhead. Basically, it is the equivalent of signing up for twice the work in areas such as design, UX, SEO, and copy-writing. 

It’s hard enough building and ranking a single website, so why in the world would you voluntarily opt to double that work? The easy, and smart answer, is to simply go to responsive and move on.

Don't block CSS, JavaScript, or images

In the old days, some mobile devices couldn't support all of these elements, so webmasters of mobile sites blocked one or all three. But for the most part that's no longer true, and the Smartphone GoogleBot wants to be able to see and categorize the same content that users do. So don't hide it. These elements are also critical to helping Google understand if you have a responsive site or a different mobile solution.

Limit choices 

When it comes to mobile, less is more. Show people only what they need to know and give them the ability to look at the main website if needed.

Don't use Flash

The plugin may not be available on your user's phone, which means they'll miss out on all the fun. If you want to create special effects, use HTML5 instead. Flash is becoming more and more outdated as we speak and still cannot be rendered on many mobile devices. Any elements that disregard the needs of your visitors or alienate a particular mobile device should be removed.

Don't use pop-ups either

It can be difficult and frustrating to try and close these on a mobile device. This might lead to a high bounce rate. These can be a nightmare for a mobile user. Some pop-ups can be very difficult to close on a small screen which can cause frustration for the visitor, not to mention, slow them down when they are trying to find their answers. Proceed with caution when using these elements on mobile.

Track Mobile Keywords

Track your mobile SEO keywords by adjusting the search query settings in Google Webmaster Tools and documenting the keywords that are trending for your site. If it’s your first time using Webmaster Tools, note that it can take a few days to incorporate your website’s data and begin tracking your keywords.

Focus on User Experience across Platforms

User Experience (UX) has become an accepted piece of website design and development in recent years. But the UX is completely different on different platforms.
When building your responsive website, always keep in mind that mobile users are on smaller phones and must interact with it via a touchscreen. This is completely different than using a mouse on a desktop or laptop computer.
Spacing matters, as does layout, flow and several other factors. If you aren’t familiar with best of breed cross-platform UX, bring in someone who is. You’ll be glad you did in the end.

Optimize for local search

If your business has a local element, remember to optimize your mobile content for local search. When optimizing for mobile, local should factor in heavily on your approach. Local Mobile SEO impacts the seven pack and other off-site listings, but those listings are in turn impacted by how you represent your location both on the website and on the search engine local directories (e.g. Google MyBusiness).
Mobile users are shown results that are geographically close to the location where they search. Be sure your mobile site is indexed at the proper location. You can influence this heavily in several ways, including semantic markup for location.

Ultimate Tools Checklist for Mobile SEO

When determining which mobile SEO strategies will work best for your business, it is important to research a variety of sources and gather as much information as possible prior to creating any new initiatives. The following is a checklist of some top-notch resources to help you further dive into the mobile SEO strategies presented in this article.

Mobile Testing Tools

Read This Guide: 10 Best Free Mobile SEO Tools For Small Business

• Google Mobile-Friendly Checker — This quick test allows you to gain insight into how Google views your mobile content and offers suggestions on how to improve any errors.
• FeedTheBot SEO Test — This comprehensive guide offers an in-depth tool to diagnosis any mobile-friendly issues that you may have and includes actionable how-to articles on correcting your mobile SEO issues. In addition, the site includes detailed analysis on a variety of mobile SEO functions.
• Google SEO Test — Google has compiled this guide to help you understand how to configure your site for multiple devices, inform the search engines of your mobile presence, and help you avoid some common mistakes while implementing.

Tips for Successful Mobile SEO Strategy in Brief:

• Successful mobile SEO strategy involves re-purposing your site, not simply making it smaller. Allow your user to find their desired information as quick as possible (and think about what that information is!), without having to sift through unnecessary information.
• It is generally accepted that mobile users type shorter key phrases into Google. Keep your meta-tags short and relevant to match the request. (Read this Simple guide to use perfect Meta Tags for mobile SEO)
• Understand the intent of your users – mobiles are ideal for information searches, though apps may be more beneficial for repeat-use products.
• Most mobile users are directed to, or on their way to, social sites. Keep your social links prominent on your mobile front page for potential engagement with new users.
• Avoid a reliance on outdated content modes like Adobe Flash and pop-up ads - the data reliance and sheer frustration these can bring will drive away customers quickly.
• Keep in mind the average fingerprint is 11mm wide, so design your buttons accordingly

There’s a lot to mobile SEO, but hopefully this list of tips has given you some good ideas about how to get started and how to apply it to your website even if you’re not trying to drive International and local traffic. If you follow these simple five strategies, you will be on top of your mobile traffic in short order.
Good luck to mobile-optimization!

Within the webmaster community there has been considerable debate lately, regarding the importance and impact of mobile website speed, and moreover the role it plays in determining a website's overall score and page rank.  On one end, there are those who swear that it makes no difference whatsoever how fast one's mobile site is, while others continue to argue that it makes all the difference, while forcing developers to split urls and compromise their SEO.
Of course, there's more to it than just these two common verbal feuds.  To settle the issue once and for all, let's take a no-frills look at how mobile site speed can impact your overall site rank, and what you need to do to remain search engine and SEO-friendly.

Familiarize Yourself with Responsive Design Techniques

When a user arrives at your site, via mobile or desktop browser, responsive design allows the application to open seamlessly, regardless of which device they used to arrive there.  The technology automatically responds to their specific system parameters, by adjusting page and display settings, auto-scaling and resizing images, compressing or enhancing DPI ratios and making other adjustments needed to present a clear, trouble-free viewing experience.

By Google's own admission, responsive design is a safe and effective technique that can be used for building fast-loading sites, with no negative impact on SEO or page score.  If you're new to all of this and need a more simplistic, yet effective, way to increase mobile website speeds, setting up a mobile redirect can work just as well.

Using Mobile Redirects to Increase Page Load Speed

Another savvy way to preserve your good page rank while boosting mobile speed, is to set up a mobile redirect.  The most common involves automatically redirecting mobile visitors to your primary url, though it can work the other way too if you're actively promoting your mobile site, or running a mobile-based ad campaign.  This allows you to keep everything conveniently located on a single url, without the worry of having your page rank being divvied up between two separate addresses.

Mobile Speed: Going Pro or Do it Yourself?

Well, this depends… do you write code for a living?  We kid of course, but if you're not familiar with the basic and semi-intricate tenets of mobile site technology, you will definitely want to call a webmaster or developer for their expertise in the area.  The last thing any of us want is to inadvertently undo years of editing and updating and optimizing, simply because we were unsure of how to properly redirect a mobile site.

One of the advantages of working with a developer who genuinely understands mobile optimization, is that in addition to properly setting up your mobile website, they will also be able to look at other SEO practices you have in place, while making sure that nothing essential has been overlooked.
Mobile websites and technology are unquestionably here to stay, and there's no way to argue the role they are already playing in how we live.  If you're in an industry that is becoming increasingly dependent upon mobile search technology, don’t wait until it's too late and you've been out-optimized by one of your competitors.

Making your blog or website mobile-friendly is especially easy to do when you’ve built your site with WordPress. With very little effort, you can have your blog looking great no matter which device you access it from.

Another benefit of making the switch to mobile friendly is that it could help your website rank higher in Google’s search results. When someone searches using a mobile device, the results will include a simple “Mobile friendly” tag next to your web address, letting users know that they will be able to access all of your content easily.

Here are a few ideas to help you make the move to mobile-friendly.


You can use one of the available plugins
WordPress allows you a number of user-friendly ways to make your website accessible on mobile devices. The simplest way is through the use of plugins. Plugins are a big help when the content of your website takes precedence over the design of the website. If you are overly concerned with the design of your site, you will want to consider other options. The following plugins will work great for helping your readers access your important blog content, however.

WPTouch
This plugin offers both a free and a premium version for users. The level you choose is up to you, but both versions work well. What this plugin does is create a completely different mobile-friendly theme anytime readers access your site from their mobile device. Your regular desktop theme will remain untouched. This ensures your visitors will be able to read your content easily, but don’t expect high design. The theme included with this plugin is very basic.

WordPress Mobile Pack
This offers more depth than the previous plugin. With this, you will have the ability to select and customize a few features of your mobile site. Like the color scheme, for example. You can even edit your posts and create new content from the mobile site.

Jetpack
Jetpack offers a range of services for your WordPress blog. It’s available on every platform because it was created by WordPress.com. It is an easy way to give your blog a mobile theme that looks clean and runs fast. One advantage to Jetpack over the other plugins is that you will have the option to add your own custom headers and backgrounds to the mobile version of your website, rather than being stuck with what the plugin gives you.

MobilePress
This is another simple plugin. It senses when a visitor is coming from a mobile device and it will display your website in a mobile-friendly theme. You can create a different theme for different devices if you choose.

You can use a responsive theme for your blog
If a plugin doesn’t sound like the right option for you, you can easily install a responsive theme. The advantage of using a responsive theme over a simple plugin is that it is more robust and will keep your design consistent across all platforms — mobile and desktop alike.

There are an enormous number of mobile responsive themes available for the WordPress platform and many great looking ones are even free. For example, the standard free themes available when you first install your WordPress blog like Twenty Eleven and others, will give you a nice looking — although basic — theme.
The final option available to you is to have a new theme custom designed for you. This is, of course, the priciest option, but it will ensure that you get all the design features that are important to you.