After so many years of technological advancement and growth, mobile devices are the biggest source to direct major part of traffic to your website, and their influence is only going to expand further and further. That\u2019s exactly the reason for Google\u2019s switch to mobile-first: to open new possibilities in the art of website optimization. To seize them, we need to answer one question first: How does one improve website rankings with mobile SEO?<\/b><\/p>\n
There are a number of factors which make your mobile website rank higher (or lower) in Google, and they can be safely divided into three major groups: technical, user experience <\/b>and\u00a0content<\/b>. There\u2019s an additional group for a few other factors that can\u2019t be included into the previous three but still, deserve mention. To help you get better acquainted with them, we have composed this list below that describes the most important mobile ranking factors.<\/p>\n Your site will be benefited by this<\/em>.<\/i><\/p>\n Everyone likes fast-loading websites. They are a treat regardless of what device you use to surf the net. However, users tend to show less patience than usual with handheld platforms.<\/p>\n According to a Mobile Ranking Factors study by Searchmetrics, the average loading time in the mobile top 10 is 1.10 seconds, and being only a tad slower (1.17 seconds on average) sends you further down in the top 30. The line separating successful sites from the poorly optimized ones is shockingly thin, wouldn\u2019t you agree? By the way, if the site doesn\u2019t load in 3 seconds, mobile users just close the browser\u2019s tab.<\/p>\n Your site will be benefited by this<\/em>.<\/i><\/p>\n AMP\u2019s secret is being light on their HTML and CSS code. It makes pages easily pre-renderable and cacheable for browsers, and as a result, they load 30 times faster than regular pages \u2013 basically, almost as soon as you click on the link. Thanks to this neat ability, AMPs have a positive effect not only on rankings but on click-through rates as well. No wonder they show up in almost every Google search result: after all, they offer the best of the best user experience.<\/p>\n This will affect your website in a bad manner.<\/i><\/p>\n Perhaps this issue will be addressed later in the future, but for now, most mobile browsers don\u2019t support Flash content and thus can\u2019t display it. Which is why it\u2019s best to have none on your mobile site. Otherwise, not only can users not see what you wanted to show them, but you also risk a penalty from Google for hidden content.<\/p>\n This will affect your website in a bad manner.<\/i><\/p>\n This goes without saying. A webmaster who allows errors and bugs on their site has no respect for themselves, their work or their users. This isn\u2019t even a matter of ranking high in search results\u2026 though of course, that\u2019s also a factor to consider.<\/p>\n If your site has issues that need fixing, users are most likely to run into errors such as faulty redirects leading to the site\u2019s desktop version and non-existing pages (good old 404 errors). Small problems can turn exploring your website into one big problem, so don\u2019t take too long dealing with them. And big problems that are already there demand even swifter action.<\/p>\n Your site will be benefited by this<\/em>.<\/i><\/p>\n Who would\u2019ve thought that something as ordinary and common as a list of whatever things could affect your site in a positive way?<\/p>\n Google seems to reward mobile sites for having unordered lists even more generously than desktop sites. This is not surprising because a neatly organized list is easy to scan. However, rankings begin to fall when the lists have too many elements in them. Because a small screen can display only so much at a time, the golden number of bullets for mobile devices is 9<\/b>.<\/p>\n Your site will be benefited by this<\/em>.<\/i><\/p>\n A picture is worth a thousand words. This old saying holds water in web design, as well.<\/p>\n Apart from being aesthetically pleasing to the human eye, images are also easier to perceive and leave a stronger impression on the viewer than raw text. It\u2019s not surprising at all that visual media are an integral part of creating an enjoyable site. However, one must not forget how abundant content affects the site\u2019s loading speed. Optimize your images to reduce their dimensions and file size and avoid using too many. On average, a single mobile page has 4<\/b>images.<\/p>\n This will affect your website in a bad manner.<\/i><\/p>\n Pop-ups are the most hated enemy of all Internet users, desktop, and mobile. They can be shameless enough on a PC even when they ask for something as innocent as your subscription \u2013 now imagine the same on a mobile device. It’s much smaller screen makes it a lot easier to obstruct a site\u2019s content with a single annoying pop-up form. Google knows this, and so they have rolled out an update that will smack the more selfish website owners with a good penalty in rankings. The algorithm still needs some work, but I hope you know better than to underestimate Google.<\/p>\n This will affect your website in a bad manner.<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cWhat is this? A web page for ants?\u201d<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve ever tried opening a desktop site on a handheld device, you probably had trouble reading its contents. That\u2019s to be expected when a page made for your standard PC display is shrunk to a mere 540\u00d7960 pixels. For that reason, the logical solution is to use large (recommended value is 16 pt.<\/b>) font on your pages \u2013 at least above the fold. That\u2019s where the page\u2019s headline is placed, and that\u2019s where it must serve its purpose to get the visitors invested in the content below.<\/p>\n This will affect your website in a bad manner.<\/i><\/p>\n Do you use interactive elements on your sites, like buttons or checkboxes? They shouldn\u2019t be so small that the user\u2019s finger has trouble pressing on them. Imagine the frustration from trying to hit a pixel on a screen and missing ten times in a row. What do you think will happen to your conversion rates if visitors can\u2019t fulfill their goal on your site?<\/p>\n Missing isn\u2019t the worst-case scenario, though; it could get much more dramatic. If small elements are placed next to each other, the user might press the wrong one and end up posting his or her credit card information online for all to see! A bit extreme, but for an example, it brings the point across nicely.<\/p>\n Mobile pages tend to have around 75% fewer<\/b> links on them than desktop pages. This is due to the limitations placed on their size and content in order to improve UX. In a similar manner to other interactive elements, avoid placing the links too close to each other, as it\u2019s too easy for a human digit to slip.<\/p>\n Your site will be benefited by this<\/em>.<\/i><\/p>\n While keywords are still important, no web page is free from the risk of being over-optimized. SEO is like chocolate: too much can and will poison you! This works with keyword presence in your content, too.<\/p>\n And the rule of thumb is simple. The longer the text, the more keywords, and related terms it\u2019s likely to have naturally. But mobile sites normally have shorter texts, so it would be strange for them to have as many keywords and phrases. Avoid over-optimization and keep it natural for a number of words you have.<\/p>\n This will affect your website in a bad manner.<\/i><\/p>\n Internet marketing is a dog-eat-dog kind of world. Even after doing your SEO perfectly, you can still trip over your own two feet and fall face down in the dirt.<\/p>\n If you know how backlinks work and what kind of advantage they provide, it should be easy to see how this could work against you. If you are aiming to rank higher for certain keywords, don\u2019t help other websites rank for them by putting your keywords into the anchor text that links out to them. Google might interpret an outbound link with a valuable keyword in it as indicating a source that is more relevant to the page\u2019s topic than your own site.<\/p>\n While desktop sites remain ahead of mobile ones in terms of how many words per page they use, the mobile sites\u2019 word count appears to be growing little by little. Curiously, a higher number of words places you further away from the top position in rankings, but URLs ranked worse than the top 10 have roughly the same text length as in the top 3.<\/p>\n Setting aside the confusing statistics, you should try to make your content rich by the mobile screen\u2019s standards rather than the desktop\u2019s. Between 700 and 1000 words is plenty.<\/p>\n Your site will be benefited by this<\/em>.<\/i><\/p>\n Rich social engagement provides a ranking boost for a site regardless of the platform. Users browse social networks on mobile, too. There\u2019s no reason why you shouldn\u2019t use this to your advantage.<\/p>\n An average user spends about 30 minutes a day on Facebook alone. Over 77% of all content shared via mobile goes through messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, making them an excellent platform for attracting visitors (through means such as newsletters, invitations or ad targeting). Don\u2019t forget that social media\u2019s primary purpose is communication, and communication equals feedback! You won\u2019t find it in such abundance anywhere else.<\/p>\nTechnical Factors<\/h2>\n
Site Speed \u2013 GOOD<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n
AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) \u2013 GOOD<\/span><\/h3>\n
Flash \u2013 BAD<\/span><\/h3>\n
Technical Errors \u2013 BAD<\/span><\/h3>\n
User Experience Factors<\/h2>\n
Unordered Lists \u2013 GOOD<\/span><\/h3>\n
Images \u2013 GOOD<\/span><\/h3>\n
Intrusive Interstitials \u2013 BAD<\/span><\/h3>\n
Small Font \u2013 BAD<\/span><\/h3>\n
Small Touch Elements \u2013 BAD<\/span><\/h3>\n
Internal Links \u2013 BE CAREFUL<\/span><\/h3>\n
Content Factors<\/h2>\n
Keywords and Related Phrases in the Body \u2013 GOOD<\/span><\/h3>\n
Keywords in External Links \u2013 BAD<\/span><\/h3>\n
Word Count \u2013 BE CAREFUL<\/span><\/h3>\n
Additional Factors<\/h2>\n
Social Signals \u2013 GOOD<\/span><\/h3>\n
Local Search Optimization \u2013 GOOD<\/span><\/h3>\n