Tag Archives: Mobile Design

Mobile Site Design and SEO

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Every business that has more than 5-10% of their traffic coming through mobile search needs a mobile site. Budget constraints or website structure often preclude using a responsive design, which most online marketing consultants agree is the best solution. Using a mobile site is budget-friendly and an application that can be used by all industries, but there are potential SEO and User Experience concerns when it comes to using a mobile site. Here is a short checklist that will cover most of the major considerations to keep in mind when creating a mobile site for a local marketing company:

Mobile Site SEO

  1. Review your mobile site from a fresh perspective. Make sure that navigation is clear and easy, and make sure that you evaluate using different smartphones and tablets. Make sure that you view the sites using the primary devices that are listed in the mobile traffic section of Google Analytics for your site. Check the load speed of your responsive site using the Google Page Load Speed Tool. Finally, be certain that the design of your mobile site is consistent with the design of your website.
  2. Do redirects properly send mobile visitors to the mobile page and the remainder to the main website page? Do mobile visitors have an option to view the desktop site?
  3. Google Webmaster Tools will tell you if Google is having trouble crawling your mobile site. Just check Crawl-Crawl Errors and select the tab for “Smartphone.”
  4. All mobile pages should be submitted via an XML sitemap to Google using Google Webmaster Tools.
  5. Be certain that there is a mobile page for each desktop page and that mobile content is edited to avoid being too wordy. Unnecessary images and videos can be a distraction on mobile.

Bottom Line: A few basic checks when creating a mobile site can help to ensure that your mobile visitors will not be doing the quality control on your mobile site for you. It can also ensure that you do not see falling search engine rankings based on a lack of a proper mobile site set up.

Eric Van Cleave is a Partner in Zenergy Works, a Santa Rosa, California SEO, Website Development and Online Marketing Firm.

What’s New For July 12, 2013 – Facebook Graph Search, Mobile Design & SEO

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Facebook Opens Up Graph Search for US English Users

In an announcement today, Facebook has announced that it is opening up its graph search for all US English users. Facebook launched Graph Search in January of this year to a limited audience. Since this beta test, the following improvements have been made:

  • Graph Search is better today at displaying the most relevant results first
  • Graph Search shows suggested potential searches and search results more quickly
  • There are more ways of asking questions today

Results in Graph Search are limited to content shared with the person doing the searching.

Different Approaches To Mobile Design Defined:

Everyone knows that mobile design has become, or needs to become, an integral part of every online marketing campaign. The question is: which vehicle to use? All of the tools listed below will function alongside Google. The different approaches to mobile design compatibility are outlined below:

Implementation URLs Content
Responsive design One URL for both desktop and mobile The page serves basically the same content to all users but detects the device and screen size and builds the layout accordingly. As the screen size gets smaller, the page may show fewer images, less text, or a simplified navigation.
Dynamic Serving One URL for both desktop and mobile The page serves different content compatible with different devices.
Mobile URLs Different URLs for desktop and mobile The mobile and desktop experience are completely different.

Please consult a Professional SEO firm on how to best optimize for each of these applications. Incorrect handling of the URLs and canonical issues for each application can cause a deterioration of rankings.

Social Media Optimization

New Study:  50% of Non-Successful SEO Companies Do Not Employ Social Media

Companies that have successful SEO campaigns, according to a new study from Ascend2 integrate social media into SEO strategies and tactics more extensively than companies that struggle with SEO.

The study polled approximately 600 marketing professionals around the world and asked the group to rate their own companies’ SEO success.The biggest difference between the “very successful” and “not successful” companies is their use of social media as part of the SEO strategy. 50 percent of the “not succeeding at SEO” companies did not integrate Social Media into their online campaigns, while 38 percent of those “very successful” with SEO are doing extensive integration of social media.

Additionally, 48 percent of all respondents said “creating original content” is the most effective SEO tactic, and only 19 percent said “external link building” is the most effective.

Bottom Line: Social Media, Mobile Integration and Great Content are the chief ingredients of successful online marketing campaigns and SEO. No matter how you slice the news, these topics seem to dominate the headlines.  The checklist for successful online marketing is clear.

Eric Van Cleave is a Partner in Zenergy Works, A Santa Rosa, California based SEO, Website Development and Online Marketing Firm.

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