Mobile Optimization Hacks To Improve Your Site’s UX

Mobile Optimization is key in your online success. Currently, Google is giving more priority to mobile users and thus the websites that are given higher rankings are those which can be accessed via mobile devices.

The Google team sent out notifications to all those websites that needed to adjust their mobile usability and also provided tools that can be used to test mobile-friendliness. These changes caused frenzy in the SEO community and people started speculating that

Google will update its search algorithms to include mobile usability which was actually implemented by Google in 2015.

This announcement by Google has greatly impacted website rankings worldwide and those websites that have not yet configured to being mobile-friendly are penalized in terms of search results, while those that create a good user experience and are mobile friendly, are ranked higher than the rest.

Google has also included an App Index to include information about Android apps related to the search results.

Requirements for Mobile Optimization

• The website has to be able to present content well on the phone

• When the website does not need pinching/zooming to allow visibility

• When the website can be read easily on a small screen

• When it is easy for a user to navigate the website using his/her finger

• When the website is useful to someone who is using a mobile phone

• When that website is properly understood by Google

How Does Mobile Optimization Affect You?

More and more people are using their devices to access website and content on the internet which necessitates that you make your website accessible through these devices.

When you enable mobile-friendliness on your website you increase the chances of people finding your business.

People are usually busy and thus they are always on the move and often don’t find the time to sit down on their computers to surf the web but they always have their phones and tablets which they use on a whim.

There are a number of resources available to you to make your website mobile-friendly and thus you should not hesitate to do so.

How to Get Your Best Mobile Ranking

It is important that you make your website mobile-friendly as fast as possible so that Google can start ranking you.

It is not enough to have a mobile site but you also have to ensure that it is optimized and thus is recognized by Google to be mobile which will have a great impact on the ranking that Google gives your website.

This should not worry you as we will guide you on how to optimize your website pages for mobile accessibility and also ensure that Google understands the mobile solutions you have implemented.

This article will attempt to cover each of following steps:

• Choosing the mobile method for your website

• Updating your website code to conform with mobile-friendliness

• Verifying how friendly your website is

• Telling Google about it

• Optimizing the mobile website

Mobile Optimization Tip #1: Choosing a Mobile Method

There are 4 ways by which a website can become mobile. These methods are responsive design, mobile URLs, AMP and dynamic serving.

The method that is highly recommended by Google is a responsive design. This is because this method is the simplest and contains the least amount of risk.

It is the wisest choice when it comes to SEO and it is also compatible with all other methods.

Mobile Optimization Tip #2: Update Website Code

This is so much easier than you are thinking right now. If you utilize tools such as WordPress and other content management systems it will be even simpler to update your website’s code.

If your website is static then don’t worry there are many responsive HTML templates available for you.

The following are some great places where you can purchase themes and templates that are already mobile friendly and at an affordable price: Hand holding phone, StudioPress, Theme Forest, and Creative Market.

Mobile Optimization Tip #3: Verify Mobile Friendliness

Google is able to determine if a site is mobile-friendly depending on a number of usability issues that can easily be tested using the tools that Google launched when it made the announcement of implementing mobile friendliness in all website using Google as a search engine.

The issues that are tested include the following:

• View of the report on a desktop and a mobile device

• Configuration of the viewpoint

• The mobile and Googlebot resources

• Avoiding of interstitial ads

• The size of the text on a mobile screen and a desktop screen

• The legibility of your font size

• The different screen sizes and CSS files

• Avoiding of plugins

• How easy it is to navigate with the touch of the finger

• The contents that are not sized to viewpoint

It is important that you test your website pages with the mobile-friendly test tools that Google officially launched.

Mobile Optimization Tip #4: Tell Google

The most important step in mobile SEO is probably ensuring that Googlebot understands what your mobile page is about.

This will go a long way in determining how your website will rank on Google. The four methods of making your website mobile that we mentioned earlier each have their own way of letting Google know that the website is mobile. They are as listed below:

Mobile Optimization Tip #5: Optimization

What we mean by optimization in reference to this article is the optimization of search engines, users and avoiding penalties issued by the search engine.

The speed of your website is a ranking factor for Google and this makes it even more important on mobile phones.

The network that mobiles use is faster than the internet that is used at home and thus makes it necessary for your mobile site to open even faster.

You should ensure that you test the speed of your website using the mobile SEO tools offered by Google and get a list of what issues are affecting the speed of your website and deal promptly with them.

When your website is slow initially it will be even slower as a mobile website. You should ensure that you allow page resources so that Google can get a complete picture of what your website is all about.

The resources we are talking about include: blocked page resources, Google scanning resources and allowing Googlebot to see all JavaScript, CSS, and images on your mobile site.

If you use WordPress you should always remember that it usually has a number of important CSS and JavaScript folders blocked. You should use mobile SEO tools to check for this problem on your website.

When you use pop-ups on your website they can be a real nightmare on mobile devices. Any reasons that you would have to open a window to a user on a desktop will never work for a mobile user.

You should instead a simple banner or information bar as suggested by Google. This could actually cause index issues that will actually be said to disrupt users.

Another issue that can occur is mobile redirects which could actually hurt the speed of your mobile page. When you use redirects on a mobile network they can be quite slow and they are actually not even needed in the first place. Always remember that the speed of your mobile site is essential.