SEO professionals were scrambling to make sure their sites were compliant with Google’s Core Web Vitals and mobile development guidelines when Google first announced its mobile-first index rollout.
Optimizing for the mobile web is a sub-field of SEO that demands specialized knowledge and its own set of best practices to achieve success. In fact, numerous industries necessitate a complete and high-quality implementation of their website specifically for mobile devices. However, not everyone meets these standards.
It is often the case that most sites fail to fulfill their goal of being compliant, which is a significant mistake considering the prevalence of mobile design in our digital society.
- 96% of Americans aged 18-29 own a smartphone.
- As of 2020, there were over 3.6 billion users who used a smartphone device worldwide. There will be 4.3 billion by 2023.
- In 2020, mobile users spent 90% of their time in apps as opposed to mobile browsers.
- Google accounts for 93.22% of the mobile search market share in the United States in 2021.
- Initial mobile search result on Google tends to achieve a 26.9% organic CTR (click-through rate).
To fully maximize your online presence, it is crucial to optimize for various devices and screen resolutions, rather than solely focusing on desktops. Additionally, Google has recently introduced their desktop page experience update, which is relevant to the broader concept of page experience. However, this article will not delve into the specifics of that update.
To ensure the best mobile implementation, it is crucial to create a mobile site that adheres to the best practices and also provides opportunities for enhancing Core Web Vitals metrics.
To achieve a mobile site that effectively reaches a larger audience, one can follow certain steps such as utilizing a responsive design instead of an m-dot subdomain, adhering to image creation and optimization best practices, and implementing compression and minification techniques.
1. Make Sure All Content Is The Same On Desktop And Mobile
To avoid duplicate content and accusations of cloaking, the purpose of this best practice is to ensure that the content on your desktop version of the site is identical to the content on the mobile version, in order to stay on the safe side.
Responsive design is one of the most effective techniques to ensure that this occurs. For those unfamiliar, responsive design involves creating a style sheet that utilizes “media queries” to automatically adapt designs across numerous platforms and devices.
If you want to make your design as fast and efficient as possible, consider exploring the use of CSS sprites to decrease the number of requests made to the server.
2. Above The Fold Isn’t Gone Entirely
In a mobile environment, where scrolling is endless, it is crucial to keep in mind that the concept of “above the fold” still holds some significance. It is still advisable to have a portion of the text content visible without scrolling in a mobile design, as it serves to entice users to scroll further.
Even though the psychological benefits and desires associated with wanting to see what you offer may not be completely gone, it is still necessary to optimize for these aspects to some extent on various mobile devices.
3. Use A ‘Top Down’ Development Approach
The top-down approach to development entails considering all potential consequences of each decision made in the design process from start to finish. Instead of initially focusing on desktop design and later incorporating a mobile design, you prioritize developing for mobile devices first. Such an approach is considered ideal as it ensures that no issues are introduced into the final design.
You initially create a desktop website and then, during the final 25% of the process, you decide to additionally create a mobile site.
You start by creating the mockup. However, when you proceed to code the mockup and navigate through the transitions, you encounter a bug in one place. Additionally, you come across another bug in another place. Finally, you discover a bug in yet another place. This occurs because the bottom-up approach is ineffective and leads to scope creep.
This phenomenon refers to the occurrence of unforeseen bugs and additional hours, which arise unexpectedly at the last minute due to unseen issues that were not accounted for during the initial scoping of the project.
If the top-down approach for mobile responsive design had been considered right from the start, the bugs and issues that are now causing problems at the end would not have emerged, leading to this dreaded situation.
4. Don’t Focus Exclusively On The Mobile Consumer
As the integration of mobile and desktop continues, the objectives and aspirations of platform users are also converging. By prioritizing the goals of your users according to each platform, you can adopt a comprehensive strategy that effectively engages customers through your website.
The blend of user goals and client acquisitions of the business will persist, whether a user is buying a product or conducting research on the services provided. Consequently, it will become less crucial to solely concentrate on these ideals and values.
This blend of mobile and desktop continues, and it is equally important to note that it is less necessary.
5. Use Responsive Design Techniques
The era of separate m-dot websites (m.example.com) is no longer in existence. There is absolutely no valid justification for employing such an approach in the mobile-first era. The arrangement can be extremely disorganized, as having multiple URLs can lead to problems of having duplicate content if they are not appropriately optimized.
There are numerous methods accessible to guarantee the achievement of a smooth transition, however, m-dot implementations have become obsolete due to the emergence of modern technologies. Currently, the optimal approach involves utilizing responsive designs. These designs utilize media queries to specify the supported display resolutions.
The design has separate resolutions, known as “breakpoints”, where the responsive design transitions. This structure avoids the problem of duplicate content that occurs in an m-dot implementation.
The text below should be rephrased step by step while keeping the same meaning. No new information should be added, and no information should be removed. Additionally, the mobile implementation will utilize the most recent technology. Rephrase: Ensure your mobile implementation utilizes the latest technology.
6. Focus on Site Speed
Is it necessary to have a background with two colors? Does the repetitive background, which is 5 pixels wide and 1500 pixels high, enhance the visual attractiveness? If not, and there is an alternative to coding it, please choose the coding option instead. This change may require little effort and have minimal impact on the website’s speed, but these optimizations, when combined, can contribute to improving the overall speed.
When conducting a website audit or designing a new website, it is important to consider whether an image is necessary or if coding it would suffice. If the image is not crucial, coding it can greatly improve the site’s speed, especially on websites with excessive graphics in their designs.
7. Customize WordPress
WordPress provides a variety of plug-ins, including one that enhances mobile compatibility. W3 Total Cache and DudaMobile are particularly beneficial plug-ins that serve this purpose. Additionally, there are other plug-ins that aid in reducing CSS and HTML. Utilize these plug-ins to enhance your WordPress SEO.
8. Avoid Duplicate Content and Cloaking
To ensure consistency between the desktop and mobile versions of your site, consider implementing a responsive design. Responsive designs utilize media queries in a stylesheet to facilitate seamless transitions across different devices and platforms.
By utilizing CSS Sprites, you can enhance the efficiency of your design by merging multiple images into one file, resulting in improved site speed.
9. Image Optimization
The presence of good images improves the visual appeal of a website and enhances the user experience by facilitating the navigation through the content. Images also contribute to mobile SEO benefits. Despite this, there is a common concern regarding the negative impact of images on website speed. Consequently, it is necessary to update your image optimization strategy and incorporate tools to implement the new system.
If you don’t keep up with the increasingly popular use of images, it may become challenging to meet consumers’ and Google’s need for speed.
First, ensure that your images are properly resized. A larger image will consume more bandwidth in comparison to a smaller one. Whenever possible, opt for a smaller image on your website. Following this, proceed to compress the images. The human eye is incapable of perceiving minor variations in an image, hence you can safely utilize a lower quality level.
10. Avoid Using Intrusive Interstitials
Every brand has a strong affinity for its product and holds the belief that it is superior. Nevertheless, when a customer navigates to your website for pre-purchase research, refrain from presenting them with an intrusive advertisement that hinders their browsing. It is crucial not to annoy users with sales pitches and disrupt their overall experience while they are exploring your site.
When rephrasing the text, it is important to consider minimizing intrusive interstitials by placing ads at the bottom or on the side of a website. Additionally, visitors should have the option to click on and close the ads. It is crucial to be aware that Google imposes penalties for intrusive interstitials, so it is advisable to read their developer guides and webmaster guidelines to prevent any problems.
11. Check for Errors
When considering your website, it is important to identify its weaknesses. These weaknesses encompass not only site speed, but also problems with its implementation on various platforms and displays. If the client notices implementation issues at the end stage that you should have noticed during development, it is not commendable.
12. Don’t Use Flash Video
Even though Flash videos have become obsolete, numerous websites still rely on them. The demise of Flash video came about with Adobe’s introduction of Macromedia and subsequent discontinuation to pave the way for HTML 5 videos. If your website lacks at least one HTML 5 video, you risk subjecting your users to a frustrating experience.
13. Structured Data
Schema markup assists in the identification of pages on your website that contain specialized, organized information. There is a wide selection of tags available for you to select and implement in order to label the content on your website. When employing a structured schema markup for a specific property, Google comprehends it more effectively, enhancing the likelihood of it being displayed in search results.
Furthermore, with the full implementation of the mobile index, reliance on Schema becomes more crucial. Utilizing structured data from schema.org is a means of comprehending data that can be transformed into informative excerpts in the mobile search outcomes.
If desired, desktop implementations can also utilize Schema structured data, which can assist in enhancing website visibility when implemented correctly.
14. Make Sure that Supporting Scripts Are Not Blocked
One mistake frequently made by developers when designing websites for any platform is the intentional blocking of supporting scripts such as CSS, JavaScript, or elements like Images. It is important to ensure that the supporting scripts for your mobile design are not blocked, as this can result in errors like mobile soft 404s as well as desktop 404s.
When you restrict Google from crawling these files, it prevents the search engine from recognizing that your website is functioning properly. Consequently, your website experiences diminished rankings since Google cannot comprehend its content.
Side notes
In order to adapt to Google’s mobile-first index, it is vital to possess a website that is compatible and accessible across different devices and platforms. Failure to promptly optimize for mobile could result in various negative consequences. When creating a mobile-optimized site, it is important to regularly test any modifications.
