One of the things that many business owners who run a website sometimes forget about, is that much of the digital marketing SEO we do is meant for people browsing the web from their laptop or computer.
This leaves a large portion of the potential marketplace left out.
Let’s face it, nowadays everyone has a cellphone and knows how to Google something on it.
Even senior citizens have become tech-savvy enough to understand how to type into Google “shoe stores near me” on their phones and get results.
So it’s important to look at how well your search engine optimization is performing with a comprehensive SEO audit for mobile users.
You might be surprised at how well, or how poorly you’re doing in some cases.
Table of Contents
SERP Decline and Mobile-First Indexing
Many businesses saw their search rankings drop through the floor when Google updated their search results index to be oriented towards mobile phones. This is because a large number of pages were not optimized towards that target group and with the change in the way Google determines rankings, many businesses suffered as a result.
Mobile-First Indexing means that if the user interface of your website is optimized for mobile users, it will rank higher in the search results now. Google made the switch from desktop to phones because more people are searching for things on their phones, thus a shift in the market so to speak.
This is why a mobile audit is necessary. Even if your site is still performing well in search results, it’s a good idea to perform a mobile SEO audit to maximize the potential of this market shift. After all, who wants to be left behind when it comes to potential customers?
We’ll break down just how to audit and optimize your site for mobile SEO so you’re not left behind.
Adapt Your Site to be More Responsive
Whether on a desktop or a mobile device, your site needs to be designed to handle the specifications of whatever device is accessing it. Screen resolutions and response times vary based on the device accessing the site so having the optimal format for either will help improve traffic results.
This aspect of your site is difficult to gauge on the face of it, you may have to do a little self-testing to make sure that the site looks right when going from computer to mobile. Test the look and response of your site on different devices to find out what works and what doesn’t to improve user experience.
Loading Speed Matters
It’s official, Google now says that how fast your website loads on mobile devices will be a factor that affects your ranking. The slower your page loads, the lower you rank in SERP results.
Thankfully, Google has provided a tool that lets you test your page speed to determine how fast or slow it is.
PageSpeed Insights shows you a rating out of 100 of how fast your page loads. It then provides suggestions on how to improve the speed of your website.
The good thing about it is that it shows results for both mobile and desktop speeds so that you can optimize both at the same time.
How Usable is Your Site on Mobile?
This is the next step in your mobile SEO audit. Using the tools available in the Google Search Console, you can inspect the different pages of your site and determine how usable each one is on a mobile device.
The tools available on the Google Search Console allow you to check your overall sitemap and understand site crawl and it has a dedicated mobile usability page that lets you know whether your site is mobile friendly and outlines any possible issues you may have.
Update Your Content
At this point, once you know how mobile-friendly your site is, you need to make sure you’re using the best keywords and providing the most relevant and up-to-date content possible to ensure that you rank properly.
Due to the change in SERP calculations, some keywords may have changed or become less relevant so it’s time to inspect your keywords again and possibly create some new content.
Making sure your meta descriptions, titles, and headings are all up to date as well will help keep things running smoothly.
Use All The Tools at Your Disposal
Once you’ve completed the bulk of your audit to make sure your site is easy to use for mobile, loads fast, and has a good interface, you want to consider some of the digital marketing tools that are available from other sites and applications to check your site’s mobile-friendliness. These include things like checking backlinks, page speed and mobile friendliness, among others.
Check Your Mobile Traffic
This is your last step in the process (or your first if you were curious before you started the audit) The simplest way to do it is by doing something you’ve probably done a thousand times, check your Google Analytics. Within you’ll be able to check your site traffic along with the devices that are being used to access your site. It even has a dedicated mobile section so you can see which users are using mobile to access and what they are doing when they access.
This information is key to making the most out of the traffic that visits your site, regardless of how they do it.
How to Perform a Mobile SEO Audit – Wrapping Up
Well, there you have it. Some of the tools and tips you’ll need to audit your website to make sure it’s search engine optimized for mobile devices. You can’t predict everything that will happen with the market or what your customers will always do, but by staying on top of the latest changes in technology, you stand a better chance of making it and succeeding in your business.
A mobile audit is the best way to make sure you’re capturing as much of your potential audience as possible and not missing out on an opportunity that is staring you in the face. Best of all, most of what you need to do are simple and the tools to do it are readily available to you as long as you know where to look.
Over the years he's written for publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur, Marketing Land, Search Engine Journal, ReadWrite and other highly respected online publications. Connect with Tim on Linkedin & Twitter.
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