With mobile devices dominating sales today, failure to follow appropriate mobile protocols can hurt your business badly. Downgraded by Google and other search engines, mobile device users never even see your website. Luckily, by following the rules of mobile SEO you can put your business back on the radar, giving you the boost you need. Now is the time to check your website and make sure you aren’t breaking these key mobile SEO rules.
Design Downfalls
One of the biggest problems in the mobile SEO world is caused by web developers, not business owners themselves. In fact, business owners find themselves in a panic when they search for their business only to find it buried several pages into the search results. Don’t let this business owner be you.
Before you approve your new website design, make sure its setup doesn’t include horizontal scrolling, proportions that require users to pinch zoom, or tiny click options that leave users fumbling. Web designers include these features all the time and unknowing business owners approve them – but now you know better.
Avoid Reroutes
In the early days of mobile SEO, the standard design practice was to build one desktop page and one mobile page. When users typed in your URL on a mobile device, the site would then reroute them from the desktop to the mobile page. That was fine then, but the Google rules today won’t let this slide. No, today you need to integrate these pages if you want anyone to find your website.
Proper web design today should be responsive, ready to go on a desktop, phone, or tablet using the same URL, properly adjusting to any screen size. This also prevents your website from issuing duplicate content that can harm your search standing.
Low Quality Content
At one point SEO errors were primarily technical – videos that didn’t play or faulty redirects – but ranking systems have become savvier as time goes on and expectations are higher. Now you’ll lose SEO standing on both desktop and mobile platforms if you’re churning out low quality content just to increase your visibility. If your website links to low quality sites or is full of content overloaded with keywords and lacking in value to your end users, you’ve got a recipe for disaster on your hands. Quality is more important than quantity in the world of SEO today.
Time For An App Attack?
If you’re struggling to build a responsive website that allows users to transition easily between desktop and mobile devices, you may be losing more business than you think. The solution, however, may be to stop fighting with your mobile page and make a shift to an app.
Device-based apps have become increasingly popular with users and they can help boost business that might otherwise be lost to poor mobile SEO. Apps centralize your marketing functions and business information. By working with an app-focused web designer you may discover digital business potential unlike anything you’ve had before. Fix your mobile browser errors, but don’t devote too much time to rebuilding – create an app instead.