It doesn’t matter where you’re going or what you’re doing, you have your phone on you. Some of us might not like to admit how connected we are to our phones, but there’s no denying it. Many people spend a lot of time fretting over their websites and how they work and look on a desktop, but that’s not the only device you have to account for. In one 2021 survey, almost half of the participants admitted to spending 5-6 hours a day on their smartphones. That’s a significant amount of time, and with data like this, mobile devices should not be ignored when it comes to digital marketing!

In a world where people of all ages are attached to their phones, businesses can’t leave mobile devices out of their SEO strategies. Not sure how a mobile device differs from a desktop? Let me explain why you need mobile SEO and how to do it.

What is Mobile SEO?

You might be familiar with SEO in general, and mobile SEO is not that different. This still involves optimizing your website to get the best rankings in the SERPs but focuses specifically on ways that you can optimize your website for mobile devices. Websites don’t operate the same way on mobile devices as they do on desktops, so there are extra considerations to make to ensure your website is mobile-friendly.

People aren’t only using their phones to scroll social media, play games, and message their friends – they’re using them for online searches too. Over half of internet traffic comes from mobile devices. Every industry is different, and which devices traffic comes from will vary, but in 2022, optimizing for mobile devices is essential. Not only are search engines looking at how mobile-friendly your website is, but users also expect a positive experience browsing the web on their mobile devices.

How to Do Mobile SEO

While many general SEO best practices will help your website on both mobile devices and desktops, there are a few tactics that are especially important. Here are some of the best ways to get started optimizing for mobile.

Google’s Mobile Usability Report

First, if you aren’t sure where your website is lacking, you can get started by trying out Google’s Mobile Usability Report. This will give you more insight as to where your website is struggling with usability on mobile devices. If you feel like you’re going into this blind, running your website through this can help you learn a little more about how to make your site more mobile-friendly. Even if you understand the basics of mobile SEO, knowing exactly what to do is important for improving your site.

Make Content Easy to Read

Many of us have struggled to read on smaller screens. When you’re reading a blog post on your desktop, the text is spread out across a much larger screen, and you likely won’t have to scroll very much to get to the bottom. However, this is much more complicated on a mobile device, where you can only see so many lines at a time.

Fortunately, SEO-optimized content can make reading on a mobile device much easier. SEO content utilizes subheadings to break up content and make it easier to find certain sections and features elements like bolded text and bulleted lists to highlight important information. This will make it much easier to go through on a small screen and ensure users are getting something out of it.

Ensure Your Website is Easy to Navigate

Again, the size of the screen significantly changes the way a user is able to view it. Not being able to navigate a website is extremely frustrating and a good reason to leave. You might have exactly what the user needs, but if navigating your site is too difficult on a mobile device, people are going to think it’s not worth it. Having a site menu that’s easy to use on mobile devices and makes it clear where users can find information will help provide a better user experience and allow them to visit more pages on your website.

Increase Page Speed

Page speed is an important part of SEO in general but is especially important for users on mobile devices. Think about it, on your desktop, you’re sitting down somewhere taking the time to actually be on the computer, likely not doing anything else. However, on your phone, you could be anywhere, likely multitasking. If you’re opening a website on your phone, you might have even less patience than browsing on your desktop.

According to Google, more than half of websites are abandoned on mobile devices if they take more than three seconds to load. If you want to keep mobile users on your site and leave them with a good user experience, you need fast web pages.

Keep Your Website Clean and Simple

You have a limited amount of space to work with, so you need to make the most of it. However, this doesn’t mean you should do as much as possible. The last thing anyone wants on a small screen is tons of design and pop-ups all over the place distracting them from the information they need. Maybe your website looks great on desktops, but it doesn’t translate as well on mobile devices. Clutter is never a good thing, so consider how the look of your website on a mobile device will impact the user experience.

Make Buttons Easy to Use

The size of any clickable elements can be easy to overlook, but doing so can lead to a poor user experience. It can be easy for anyone to miss a too-small button and click something else that was too close to it. No one wants to be redirected to the wrong page because a site owner didn’t consider their mobile audience. This might seem small, but what if someone tries to submit a contact form or sign up for something and struggles to? People will only be annoyed by this, and you’ll miss out on a conversion you were so close to getting.

Have an SEO Team That Can Handle it All

This might seem like a lot, and that’s not even all there is when it comes to optimizing for mobile devices. The good news is that you have nothing to worry about. At ENX2 Marketing, we’ll handle everything for you, so your website will be great no matter the device users are viewing it from. We can provide SEO services and much more to make your website better than you could have imagined.

Mobile SEO and How to Optimize for Mobile Devices