A Complete Guide to Mobile SEO: Best Practice You Need to Know

Over the years, the internet and search engines have become critical to the success of a business. Being the first result when someone uses Google can make a massive difference in increasing revenue and customers.

It doesn't matter whether you're running an online boutique or a mobile phone accessories wholesale business, optimising your site so that it ranks higher in relevant search engine results on mobile devices is crucial.

Most of the population worldwide, including the United States, own a smartphone. It’s no longer viable for any business to operate without an online presence. This is because websites play a key role in today’s technology-driven society as an access point for customers, a location for information, and a shopping platform.

Statistics from mid-2023 estimate that almost 96% of the global digital population used a mobile device to connect to the internet. This data highlights how crucial it is for businesses to have a website, as well as optimise the experience for mobile users.

Google has also completed its switch to mobile-first indexing when it comes to search engine optimisation. This means Google now prioritises mobile versions of websites when crawling and indexing.

What is search engine optimisation?

Before we delve into mobile-first indexing and what it means for businesses, it’s important to understand search engine optimisation. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of optimising a website so it ranks higher on a search engine results page (SERP), resulting in more traffic.

Search engine optimisation aims to rank on the first page of Google results for search terms that are most relevant to your business’s target audience. Although the term is called “search engine” optimisation, SEO typically revolves around what Google wants.

This is because Google is the main search engine for most internet users. Data shows that Google has about 81% of the global search engine market. That’s why the SEO process is always tailored to what meets Google’s criteria.

How search engine results work

Search engine results pages consist of paid search results and “organic” search results. Businesses can pay Google to show up on the first page as an advertised result, or they can use SEO to rank better as an organic result.

Google delivers organic results based on a variety of complex algorithms, which consider hundreds of factors. These include the user experience, the website’s content quality, relevance to search terms, and more. Below, we’ve outlined a few of the criteria.

Keywords

The phrases that a user types into the search engine when they’re searching are known as keywords. For search engine optimisation, keywords play a crucial role for businesses looking to optimise their website and content. 

When a business knows the keywords a user would search for their products or services, they can use this to optimise their website. They can do this by including keywords in their content, like in the headers and sentences.

On-page SEO

On-page SEO refers to optimising elements of a website to be more search-engine friendly. For example, keyword-focused URLS can help both users and Google determine if a page has relevant content and can help with rankings.

Putting keywords in page and article titles as well as meta descriptions that accurately describe page content also helps improve rankings.

Technical SEO

Search engine optimisation isn’t just through keywords and what users see, it also extends to the back end of the website. Technical factors that can influence how Google ranks a website include:

• Site speed plays a factor in page rankings. Faster-loading pages are ranked higher by Google because they provide a better user experience.
  
  
• Sites that have HTTPS (secure connections) rank higher than non-secure ones. This is because Google relies on having a trustworthy reputation for its business.
  
  
• Sitemaps can help search engines crawl and index your website faster.
  
  
• Since Google has changed to a mobile-first indexing algorithm, sites that are optimised for mobile viewing rank higher.

Content marketing

Consistent and valuable content, like infographics, blog posts, and videos, helps businesses engage users and earn backlinks for their websites. This is crucial for building trust with users and search engines and ranking higher.

User experience

In the past few years, the SEO process has been focusing more on ranking websites based on the user experience. Websites that offer easy-to-use navigation and mobile-optimised layouts tend to rank higher. 

Why is mobile-first indexing a huge deal?

Indexing is a part of Google’s process of storing and categorising information and content about websites for when they display and rank it on SERPs. If a website isn’t optimised correctly, it can lead to the wrong data being indexed, and result in a website being incorrectly ranked or displayed on a SERP.

Google uses crawlers, an automated program, to conduct the indexing process. These crawlers scour the internet for websites, downloading images, text, and videos. That’s why sitemaps and structure are important, as they can help crawlers more efficiently navigate a website.

When it comes to indexing, websites usually have two versions, one for mobile and one for desktop users. Formerly, when Google indexed a site, it would index the desktop version as the “main” version, and collect data from the desktop site to determine how the page ranked.

Now, Google is using a mobile-first indexing approach, which uses the mobile version of a website as the “main” version. So, any websites poorly optimised for mobile, whether it’s the navigation/menus, poor loading speeds, or missing content, will rank poorly.

If a business’s website looks fantastic on a desktop but isn’t mobile-friendly, it won’t matter if the desktop version is high-quality. The low-quality, mobile version of the website is what Google will crawl and index—which is why mobile-first indexing is a huge deal.

The best mobile SEO practices

Mobile SEO is critical for ensuring the success of your website, whether you’re a large organisation running a business or just an individual blogger. To ensure your site performs well for Google’s new mobile-first indexing process, we’ve listed the best practices to follow below.

• Responsive design: Featuring a responsive website design is crucial when it comes to optimising a mobile-friendly website. A responsive design can automatically adjust to different screen sizes, ensuring consistency across all devices.
  
  
• URL management: Avoid separate mobile and desktop URLs (e.g., m.example.net). Responsive design eliminates the need for mobile URLs, and mobile URLs can also hurt SEO.
  
  
• Fast loading speeds: Optimising page speed by reducing file sizes and using caching can greatly increase a website’s ranking factor. Tools exist to also test website loading speeds and identify areas to improve.
  
  
• Mobile-friendly navigation: Ensure that menus and the overall website for mobile users are easy to navigate. This includes having an intuitive layout, large buttons, and easy-to-use menus.
  
  
• Search function: Consumers expect every website to have a search function nowadays. This allows for immediate, custom results with just a few clicks which can lead to more traffic and returning users.

SEO tools and analytics, like SEMRush and Google Analytics, can be indispensable tools for improving a website’s SEO. They can help identify areas for improvement, provide keywords, and check engagement levels.