More and more people now use smartphones and tablets when searching on Google, buying and selling various products, and staying in touch with friends and loved ones. So, it wasn’t a surprise when Google announced that it would start to adapt mobile-first indexing.
In March 2021, it happened. Google now uses mobile versions of a website’s landing page for indexing and ranking. As such, if your site is not mobile-friendly, it will fail to attract Google’s attention. Additionally, it won’t get as many visitors as you want it to. What you should do is go mobile and apply the best SEO strategies so you can improve site performance, attract more visitors, and stay ahead of the tough competition.
However, mobile SEO is not something that you can do overnight. It is easy to make mobile SEO mistakes if you are not familiar with what you are doing. Even the most experienced SEO specialists can slip up.
You should work with experienced and professional specialists or hire white label SEO services, but it pays to know what to avoid. What follows is a list of common mobile SEO mistakes that many often take for granted.
Mobile SEO Mistakes You Shouldn’t Do
1. A slow loading website or slow site speed
How fast your site or page loads is an essential factor for ranking in search engines. Anybody who visits your site and is made to wait for several seconds for the page to load will immediately leave. They will remove your site from their list and move on to another site.
People who use mobile internet like the convenience of doing so; they typically go on Google, their email, or on social media while they are on the go. So, it is understandable for them to want a website that loads in or less than three seconds.
You can improve page loading time by optimising, resizing, and compressing images; doing away with unnecessary Flash-based elements; minimising redirects; and finding a better, faster, and more efficient hosting service provider.
2. Large pop-up ads or interstitials
Interstitials are ad pages that fill or float over a screen, specifically on a mobile device. They are a type of interruption marketing, and they are intrusive and can turn off visitors because they interfere with an easy and convenient user experience.
Some examples of interstitials are newsletter sign-ups, banner ads, and pop-up ads. They float over the screen and cover the entire mobile screen. This can irritate users, which makes them immediately leave the website and never visit again.
Interstitials can serve their purpose, too, but they shouldn’t be too big and should cover only a small area or corner of the mobile screen.
3. Using small fonts
Remember that mobile websites have smaller screens. So, you have to ensure that your fonts are not too small for your users. Small fonts make your content difficult to read and understand, and this can turn away visitors. Nobody will want to go through your website, squinting through all the pages, as that would be completely inconvenient.
The ideal font size for mobile websites is 16pixels.
4. Irrelevant, boring content
In this day and age, yes, content is still king. So, it doesn’t matter how well-designed your website is; if its content is irrelevant, boring, and hastily made, it won’t amount to anything. Your site won’t matter to Google, and it won’t make any impression on your visitors.
Complete, relevant, interesting, and well-written content gives users all the information they need. It doesn’t have to be long-winded; it only has to be meaningful. Put yourself in the users’ shoes and try to answer all the questions you want to ask about the content topic. If your content answers all the questions well, then you’re on the right track.
5. Non-responsive design
If you want your website to offer convenience and an excellent user experience, make it responsive.
A responsive website is flexible and adjusts automatically depending on the screen size of the user’s device. As such, the content, design, layout, and words of a responsive site easily change according to the width of the device’s browser – and every element retails its look, size, and placement, among others.
With a responsive mobile website design, your users will need only one system and URL regardless of their device’s type and screen size.
6. No keyword research was done
When searching online, mobile devices often require a different set of keywords, so you should not ignore doing mobile keyword research.
When users search using mobile devices, there are two methods involved: voice recognition and thumb typing.
Voice recognition search uses Siri, Google, and Cortana. Users input the search term by speaking into the system. To determine the necessary keywords, put yourself in the user’s shoes and imagine what you would like to ask Google, so you’ll find what you’re looking for.
Thumb typing typically uses two thumbs when typing and searching using a mobile device. It is easy to misspell a word or two, so terms should be shorter and easier to type. Again, put yourself in the user’s shoes, and then imagine what terms they would type using thumb typing.
7. No CTAs or too-small CTAs
Calls to Action or CTAs are crucial for any business website. They allow users to explore their options for the next step, so they should be easily seen and readable. They should be in easy-to-read fonts and font size, and they should not be too small (but not too big either).
Your CTAs must be easily identifiable and distinct from other content elements. They should also “stick out” so that users can see them right away.
8. Unplayable content (specifically videos)
Ensure that any content you put or embed on your page can be accessed and played. For example, once clicked, videos must play on both mobile and desktop computers. Videos that play only on certain devices (i.e., on desktops but not on mobiles) are useless – and annoying.
Knowing common SEO mistakes such as those listed above will help you determine the right things to do to improve your mobile website and attract more visitors.
About The Author
Shawn Byrne is the founder and CEO of My Biz Niche, an Arizona-based digital marketing and web design company that has achieved superior results for its clients. Before My Biz Niche, Shawn worked for Venture Capitalists where he built a private portfolio of e-commerce and informational websites that generate revenue through various digital marketing strategies.
