In recent years, there has been a shift in the way people browse the web. Now, more people use smartphones and tablets to access websites than desktops and laptops. Access to information and business transactions is mostly done via mobile devices. This change needs to be followed by efforts to prioritize websites on mobile devices.
A mobile-friendly website is now very important. You should pay attention to search engine optimization for mobile devices (mobile SEO). Your website must be optimal, responsive, and comfortable for mobile devices. If you ignore changes and don't adapt quickly, there will be losses due to bad experiences on mobile devices.
What is Mobile SEO?
Mobile SEO is the process of optimizing a website for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Mobile SEO covers various best practices ranging from speed, metadata, popups, sitemaps, user interface, navigation, and so on. The main goal of mobile SEO is optimized content and good ranking in mobile device search results.
Many of us don't realize how important a mobile-friendly website is. If your website is not mobile-friendly, this can have a negative impact on SEO performance and visitors will have a negative perception of your business. Visitors will no longer interact with websites that provide a bad experience on mobile devices.
By striving for a mobile-friendly website, mobile device users can freely explore and interact with your website content without having to zoom in or scroll excessively.
Apart from being important for the visitor experience, a mobile-friendly website is also a factor that influences SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This is because search engines like Google tend to give higher rankings to websites that are more responsive and mobile-friendly.
Therefore, having a mobile-friendly website will automatically help you increase your website's visibility and ranking in search results.
Why is a mobile-friendly website important for SEO?
There are several reasons why search engine optimization for mobile devices (mobile SEO) is so important.
1. Most of the time is spent surfing the web with mobile devices
Website visitors spend most of their time browsing the web on smartphones or tablets. Therefore, you need to ensure that they get the best experience while on your website. If you don't adapt quickly and your website isn't mobile-friendly, you could potentially lose a lot of visitors and conversions.
2. Visitors will return to websites that provide a good experience
Visitors who access mobile-friendly websites via smartphones and tablets will get a good and positive experience. This makes sense if they then come back to visit your website. Returning visitors provide good business prospects such as the possibility of buying your products or using your services.
3. Conversion rates increase
A mobile-friendly website influences conversion rates. When a website displays and functions well on a smartphone or tablet, it will provide a good and positive experience to visitors and they will be more likely to buy your products or use your services. A mobile-friendly website helps you get more conversions for your business.
4. The mobile version of the website is a priority for crawling and indexing
Due to the large number of accesses to websites via mobile devices, Google has changed its method of ranking website content. Google is now switching to a mobile-first index, meaning that Google gives priority to crawling and indexing mobile versions of website content.
A website that is not mobile-friendly can damage rankings, reduce visitor traffic, reduce conversions, and reduce your business revenue.
How to check a website is Mobile-Friendly?
Is your website mobile-friendly? Almost all websites today are mobile-friendly. However, to be sure, you can test via Google's online tool whether the website is mobile-friendly or not. You can visit via the Mobile-Friendly Test link, enter the URL of the website page you want to test (1) and then click the TEST URL button (2).
Before implementing website optimization, MinDi friends should first know whether your website is mobile-friendly or not. That way, MinDi friends can find out what needs to be done more efficiently. To find out, you can use one of Google's free SEO tools called Mobile-Friendly Test. Come on, follow these steps:
- Visit the official Google Mobile-friendly Test page.
- Enter the URL of the website you want to check in the search field.
- Press the "Test" button and wait for the results for a few moments.
- If your website is mobile-friendly, you will see a message that says "This page is mobile-friendly."
- If your website is not mobile-friendly, you will see a message that says "This page is not mobile-friendly." and tell you what problems you need to fix.
Which is a best practice for mobile SEO?
Now that you know that mobile SEO is very important, now is the time to implement best practices for optimizing search engines for mobile devices. There are several recommended best practices for proper mobile SEO.
1. Optimize website speed
Every visitor wants website pages to load quickly, especially when they use a mobile device. Website page load speed or page speed is very important. Visitors generally get impatient when website pages take more than 3 seconds to load. Visitors will leave your website and move to competitors' websites. This is a negative signal from visitors interacting with your website.
Website page load speed is one of the priorities in mobile SEO. Website pages that load slowly cause high bounce rates and poor user experience, thereby damaging SERP rankings. You can start by optimizing images by compressing them, improving redirect chains, minimizing HTTP requests, utilizing browser cache, minimizing HTML, CSS and JavaScript and using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to speed up website page load times.
2. Use responsive design
Responsive design is not an SEO factor, but Google likes websites that have responsive designs. Responsive design uses a flexible layout that is able to adapt to various device screen orientations and sizes, especially smartphones and tablets. Implementing responsive design makes your website mobile device friendly and this is liked by website visitors.
Almost all websites today have a responsive design. If your website is not responsive, this is an indicator that you need to redesign the website. Unresponsive websites are only good for viewing on desktops or laptops. When accessed via a mobile device, the layout does not change so text and images look small and difficult to read. You have to zoom in and out to be able to read the information.
If a website is created with CMS Joomla! or WordPress, then the responsive design depends on the template or theme used. Therefore, choose a good and appropriate template or theme, one of which has a responsive design. Templates or themes control the layout and appearance of your website. There are many providers that provide templates or themes that are well coded and optimized for mobile devices.
3. Optimize for local SEO
Local SEO is an important part of mobile SEO. Local SEO in simple terms is increasing the ranking and visibility of a website in local searches such as Google map pack or local pack, which is a Google feature that displays a list of top local businesses and maps. Local SEO is very good to apply to business websites that sell products or offer services.
Local searches typically use the phrases “near me”, “open now”, “where to buy” to find nearby local businesses. Many people search using local phrases on mobile devices. You can apply local SEO marketing to bring your business closer to more people. Use local keywords, for example "cafe in [city]", "flower shop in [city]", "toilet suction in [city]", and so on.
You have to adapt for local searches, one of which is by using local keywords. Using the right local keywords can help your business website appear more in local search results. This is a great way to increase rankings and visibility and your business website will excel in local searches.
4. Implement easy-to-use navigation
Navigation on a website plays a very important role. Through navigation, visitors can find and access information on the website. To create a positive environment for visitors, make navigation mobile-friendly. Navigation that is too difficult to use can cause visitors to become frustrated and ultimately leave your website.
Easy navigation not only provides a good experience for mobile users, but is also important for SEO because Google prioritizes crawling and indexing on mobile devices. The best way to create mobile-friendly navigation is to use a hamburger menu. This hamburger menu appears at the top of the page and when tapped, displays a drop-down menu.
5. Implement subtle pop-ups
Have you ever had a pop-up or small window suddenly appear when scrolling down a website page? Pop-ups are an effective way to attract the attention of website visitors. Pop-ups are usually used to sign up to receive emails or download free content. To keep your website mobile-friendly, you need to implement subtle pop-ups, not annoying pop-ups.
For example, a subtle pop-up appears when a visitor scrolls down 70% of the website page, the pop-up is easy to close with a clear X icon, the CTA (Call-to-Action) button on the pop-up must also be clear, the pop-up does not fulfill the entire smartphone screen, pop-ups don't appear often, and so on. Implementing annoying pop-ups can cause website visitors to become irritated and then leave your website.
6. Avoid using flash
Flash is used to add interactivity to websites such as videos and animations. Flash can make website pages more interactive and lively. However, flash is an outdated technology and is also the cause of your website being slow. Flash makes website pages take longer to load and is sometimes not compatible with mobile devices because there are flash elements that don't work.
Flash elements that don't work are considered to mean that the website page is not loaded completely and completely. This can affect SEO and give users a poor experience on mobile devices. If your website uses a lot of flash, it's time for you to redesign the website. Use new compatible and lightweight web technologies such as HTML 5 and CSS to create interactive websites.
7. Enable Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is a Google technology that aims to speed up the loading of website pages when opened on the mobile version.
By enabling AMP, the website will use a simplified version of the page using specially optimized HTML. Apart from increasing website speed, AMP also has the following benefits:
- Securing the website via the HTTPS protocol.
- Limits image resolution and size to speed up loading.
- Change the image to a size suitable for mobile viewing.
8. Perform Image Optimization
Website content decorated with various illustrations can make the appearance of your website look more attractive. However, using excessive or too large images can actually make your website less mobile-friendly. The thing is, images that are too many or large in size can slow down the loading of your website.
There are several things you need to pay attention to when optimizing images, namely:
a. Choose an Efficient Image Format
To save more disk space, you should choose an image format such as JPEG or PNG. JPEG is suitable for images with many colors, while PNG is better for images with many transparent areas or graphics with fewer colors.
b. Perform Image Compression
Erzedka friends can use online tools such as TinyPNG or TinyJPG to reduce the size of image files without significantly reducing image quality.
c. Shrink Image Dimensions
Before uploading to the web, it's a good idea to reduce the image dimensions according to display requirements on a mobile device. Erzedka friends can use software such as Paint or Picasa to do this.
d. Install the Image Optimizer Plugin
If you want to optimize images automatically, Erzedka friends can install an image optimizer plugin such as WP Smush. This plugin will automatically compress and optimize images that you upload to the web.
e. Add Title Text and Alt Text
Search engine bots can't see images. Therefore, Erzedka friends need to add relevant title text and alt text to help search engines understand the image content. Just enter keywords in the title text, then provide a description of the image appearance in the alt text.
9. Provide a Search Field
The search column or search bar is one of the most important things on a website. Especially if your website is an e-commerce type, there will definitely be lots of menus and pages containing the products for sale.
If there is no search field, users will have difficulty finding the information they want to search for. Therefore, provide a search bar so that users can immediately enter relevant keywords and immediately find the information they need efficiently.
10. Give Enough Whitespace
Whitespace is the area or empty space around design elements on a website page. Sufficient white space can give the impression of a neat, clean and professional appearance.
On mobile devices where screen size is limited, sufficient whitespace between design elements can also help improve readability. So, make sure your website has enough white space to make it easier for users to find or read content.
11. Choose a font that is easy to read
The type of font you use can also affect the level of mobile-friendliness of a website, you know! So, don't just pay attention to fonts in terms of their aesthetics, OK~
Fonts that are too small, complicated, or have a style that is too decorative can actually make it difficult for users to read content. So, choose a font that is large enough and has a simple style so that it is easy to read on a small screen like a cellphone.
Conclusion
In this article, we've discussed the importance of having a mobile-friendly website as well as a step-by-step guide to creating an optimal user experience on mobile devices.
By implementing ways to create a mobile-friendly website, Erzedka friends can ensure that the user experience on mobile devices can be better, increase visitor engagement, and support the visibility and ranking of your website in search results...