Google has made rather dire predictions about how mobile search volume could actually exceed desktop search volume by the end of the year. However, even if you are not completely up on your mobile game, you should not panic. There are simple and easy ways to revise your marketing strategy that will give you better results in both the mobile and the desktop arenas.
What If I Am Not A Local Business?
The tolling of the “mobile device” bell has rung frighteningly hollow for those who do not have a physical location for their businesses. However, when you think about huge companies like Amazon, you quickly realize that not having a physical location has not stopped these businesses from capitalizing on the mobile market. How have successfully businesses capitalized on the SEO/mobile search/mobile device market?
First, realize that many people in the mobile demographic may not be in your target group. If you are enjoying success with your website traffic from non-mobile users, it makes no sense to suddenly start worrying about the mobile crowd, particularly if they do not account for your target market. Further, understand that people are beginning to demand a more desktop-like experience from mobile devices. Therefore, what you already have on your website may be easily adaptable to a good mobile experience sooner than you think.
Also understand that while people do tend to use mobile devices for local searches for particular things, they do not use them for research or for longer web experiences at nearly the same rate. The reason is probably practical; mobile devices are notoriously inconvenient when it comes to long sessions on the keyboard.
There is a relatively simple way to learn the truth. Use your available analytics to determine how many of your visitors actually come from mobile websites. The percentage may surprise you.
Tips for Mobile SEO
Here are a few tips that can help you with your mobile SEO strategy:
- Sort pages receiving traffic from search engines via mobile devices. It is important to compile data on the actual pages that are visited and not just the website itself. This will give you a list of URLs that you can target for mobile optimization.
- Consider responsive design for pages that do not receive much mobile traffic, but be sure that you take a baseline measurement and compare before and after numbers to see if your work is actually increasing your mobile visitor numbers. If not, stop putting your efforts where they will not do any good.
- Stop forcing app downloads. It is a good idea to offer one, but to force someone to download software is to guarantee a certain amount of attrition.
- Even if you do not go “whole hog” on responsive design, be sure that you do take steps such a limiting ads and speeding up downloads.
- Limit choices to keep the mobile experience clean.
There are many things you can do with mobile SEO that do not require incredible time and money investments.