In a recent post, we had a fireside chat about how mobile search will overtake desktop search in 2015. And we promised a post to further the discussion on ‘how’ to take advantage of this swing and make sure you are prepared to optimize for mobile search.
As obvious as this may sound, create a mobile version of your site! If you haven’t done that, please quit reading now, and go make one. If you don’t have a webmaster or other handy type around, use Duda Mobile a super easy service we like to quickly create one for ya!
OK now that you have a mobile-friendly version of your site, here are 3 things to do:
This one’s a bonus and doesn’t count, since we mentioned it above. But for you scrolling types that may just give this post a once-over:
Thanks for the image Duda Mobile!
0) Make sure you have a responsive site or a mobile-specific site so your content fits the screens appropriately. Don’t make users do magical things to scroll and contort their devices to view your cool content, OK?
1) Speed rules. Make it fast, cut the fat, get down to biz. Make your navigation concise, and consider limiting the links and content to only your top content areas.
2) Analyze the difference in conversions, bounce rates, engagement on mobile searchers vs. desktop. Look for dead ends, pages with high drop offs, and target them for fixes (or even removal from main navigation). Conversely, look for your most productive pages and apply those factors to improve the less fortunate ones;). You can view your mobile site load times and other stats right in Google Analytics.
3) Think local! More than 20% of all mobile searches are for folks looking for services & products in your ‘hood. So if you have a local presence, creating a verified Google+ Local profile will give you a listing on Google Maps, which is valuable for smartphones because it’s featured prominently in the SERPs, and ‘local search’ on a smartphone can also happen within apps (such as the Google Maps app) that utilize Google search.
Ok we hope that helped. If you have any other great tips to optimize for mobile search, let us know!