Understanding mobile web and mobile apps
Hi! In today’s business world, it’s no longer enough just to have a website. People today access the Internet on mobiles more often than computers.
Bottom line: Your business website needs to be mobile-friendly. That is, it needs to work well on smaller screens.
In this video, we’ll talk about how search engines have adapted to the way we now use mobiles. How to make your website mobile-friendly; and, some important things you should know about mobile SEO.
Ok. Imagine you’re just heading out of the flat when you suddenly notice the kitchen sink is blocked. Not good. You’ve got friends coming round later and so you need a plumber to come to sort this out today. But you’ve got a taxi waiting outside to take you to the train station, and you need to go now.
So, you grab your mobile, jump in the cab, and search for 'plumber near me. The search results show a few options, including several businesses just a few streets from your flat. One of the options has a clickable phone number. You’ll be at the station soon, so you click to make the call. And the plumber agrees to meet you at your flat by 5. Thank you, mobile!
This scenario is a perfect example of how many of your potential customers are using mobiles. They’re often on the go, pressed for time, and using search engines to look for quick answers. Search engines offer people results that match their search terms and location. They can also tell if a site is mobile-friendly. So what does mobile-friendly mean, exactly? Let’s start with the technology used to build your site. There are many options available, but most search engines prefer something called “responsive design.”
A responsive website adapts itself depending on the size of a viewer's screen. When you have a responsive site, you don’t have to create separate sites for computers and mobiles. So you save yourself a lot of effort.
A well-designed mobile site is usable on the smallest mobile screen.
Fonts and buttons should be easy to read and click on. And the navigation should be clear and simple to use. Visitors should immediately understand their next possible steps, and how to take action. For example, in our plumber scenario, there was a clickable phone number.
Despite the smaller screen size, website visitors should be able to complete common, important tasks. Once you’ve created a mobile-friendly site, you’ll want to help search engines find it, understand it, and hopefully show it in the results. What's search engine optimization, with a focus on mobile.
Mobile SEO includes the same factors you’d consider for standard websites, like relevant content. But what’s crucial for mobile site optimization, is performance and usability. Performance is how quickly a site loads, and this can be impacted by many things, such as overly large images and file sizes.
Usability refers to a visitor’s experience using your site. Generally speaking, if your site has a good mobile user experience, it will be more likely to appear in mobile search results.
Here’s an example. Some video and content formats can’t be viewed on mobiles. So, if that’s how your site is built, it won’t offer a great user experience, right?
You can do a quick mobile check-up of your site by visiting Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. So let’s recap.
It’s important to make sure your business’s website works well on mobiles.
A mobile-friendly site can bring you more site visitors, give them a better experience, and bring in more business.
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