2017 will forever be remembered as the year Google developed and adopted its first mobile strategy. Of course, it’s hard to call it a revolution, but it’s still not worth underestimating the significance of this event.
Why is this so important?
The statistics are as follows: by the end of 2016, users mainly make requests from mobile devices. 77% of search requests are processed by Google.
Research source
Research source
So when the company announced this year that it would prioritize taiyuan telephone number data mobile sites over desktop sites in terms of relevance and ranking, it was a real breakthrough. Especially for those working with mobile traffic.
Maybe you also have a mobile version of your site, but you haven't optimized it yet, or you've only worked on the desktop version. Then your site probably has a very low Google ranking. And since you rank low in mobile search, your desktop search results aren't that good either.
That was the bad news. The good news is that it's easy to fix. This article will help you pay attention to several important nuances that are important to change. We also provide links to tools that will help with site diagnostics.
1. Broken redirects
When a mobile user goes to the desktop version of the site, the correct code will redirect the request to the mobile site. Often, the user ends up on the main page of the site, regardless of what he was looking for. And that's bad.
Worse, sometimes users are redirected to an error page stating that the site cannot be viewed on a mobile device. This is a frustrating experience for the user. And Google will penalize you if you go this route.
Read about the most common mistakes when creating mobile sites
Read about the most common mistakes when creating mobile sites
Luckily, you don’t have to manually load each web page on your phone to check if the redirect is correct. You can use Google Search Console . The tool will detect all the broken redirects on your site, and you can fix them quickly. All you have to do is enter the URL, and you’ll get a list of pages with incorrect or questionable redirects.
Make sure that every desktop page redirects to the corresponding mobile page. If any of your pages don't have a mobile version, use the web version until you fix the issue. It's better for the user to see something useful than nothing.
Google Search Console
2. Slow loading pages
There’s nothing less appealing to a user than a website that takes too long to load. According to a study by Searchmetrics , the 10 fastest mobile pages load in an average of 1.1 seconds. The average load time for the top 30 is 1.17 seconds — a difference of 0.7 seconds.
If your page loads in 3 seconds, that's slow. Who's going to wait that long? Mobile users value speed and won't wait for your site to load. They'll likely try to get the data they need elsewhere.
Google has tools for analyzing website loading speed, based on which sites are ranked in search. Sites with slow loading speeds are at the very bottom of the ranking list - it is not in Google's interests to give users sites that may disappoint them.
With PageSpeed Insights, you can identify heavy images that slow down loading, as well as any script or code issues. For each such issue, the tool provides a link to instructions on how to fix it.
Try it with your site
Try it with your site
Download speed can be measured using these services:
PR-CY Website Speed Test ,
GTmetrix ,
PageSpeed ,
Mobitest ,
Think with Google ,
GTmetrix ,
SynTraffic,
Dotcom Monitor .
3. Lack of local optimization
Mobile users are increasingly localizing their searches. For example, you can easily find out where the nearest cafe, museum, dry cleaner is. Therefore, it is very important to ensure that your site is displayed in local search results. Keyword terms on your site may be “pizza” and “pizzeria,” but it is also important to indicate your location several times.
Better yet, register your business with Google by adding your address, contact information, website, business category, and business hours to your card. The next time someone near your cafe wants pizza, they'll find you easily.
register business with google
4. Annoying pop-ups and interstitials
When people come to your site, they want the information they came for. You're frustrating the user if the information they need is blocked by a pop-up or a form they have to fill out before they can continue reading. While it's easy to figure out how to close a pop-up on a desktop site, it's harder on a mobile device.
Of course, it is important for businesses to collect a database of email addresses. Companies often offer discounts or bonuses for subscribing to news and are not at all interested in users leaving.
But not in the case of mobile search. Using annoying popups negatively affects rankings. In January, Google began penalizing sites for using them. Trust me, you won’t be able to collect email addresses from a site that can’t be found in search.
Therefore, it is better to let the user decide for himself whether he wants to leave the address or not.
