Mobile SEO Missteps That Will Come Back to Haunt You

Mobile users have become just as important, if not more so, than desktop users when it comes to your search engine optimization practices. If you’re not reaching or keeping your mobile users, you’re missing out on a huge possible customer base.

Mobile SEO isn’t quite the same as desktop SEO, and it comes with its own unique set of potential pitfalls. Keep reading to learn more about four major missteps that could be sinking your mobile SEO efforts right now.

Your Design is Flawed

With mobile design, it’s simply all about the user experience. Visitors to your mobile website want to be visually pleased and delighted, not confused or frustrated by what tiny button to press or link to click. There are a lot of costly errors you can make in this area, but here are some of the more common ones:

The pinch zoom: a user who has to reverse pinch just to see text on his or her screen is pretty much frustrated from the get-go. Always remember that mobile is all about the quick and easy for your users.

The horizontal scroll: if someone is reverse pinching, they’re probably scrolling horizontally too, if they stick around that long.

The tiny click: a button that’s meant to display on a 1600 x 900 screen is going to be incredibly small and hard for users to see on a mobile device.

The long wait time: mobile users are on the go and have limited time, so they don’t want to wait for your website pages to load. Data-heavy pages may load fine on a desktop, but they can bog mobile users down by seconds they simply don’t want to spare.

Your Redirects Don’t Work

Redirects are given the weight they deserve when it comes to desktop users, but are often treated as an afterthought on mobile sites. When your mobile users access your desktop version, they should be properly redirected to your mobile version and vice versa.

Functioning redirects tie back into the truly optimized mobile and desktop user experiences. Without the right redirections, your users may not see your content correctly or at all, and that’s often a deal breaker for the very same people you’re focusing your marketing efforts on.

Your Content is Inaccessible

You’ve probably encountered this one yourself — everyone in the office is talking about this great new talking bird clip they saw, so you fire up your phone only to see the dreaded “This content is not available on mobile” message.

A video or clip that doesn’t play for mobile users is often down to popular players not being widely supported on mobile platforms. While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for this issue, there are some things you should consider when it comes to creating and deploying playable content on your mobile site.

– Go with HTML5 standards for your animations to provide a smoother experience for all users.

– Try video-embedding that can be played across all or nearly all devices

– Create a transcript of the video and make it available for users. This makes the content accessible to users on browsers who can’t play it and people who use assistive browsing tech.

You’re Using Mobile Interstitials

It’s naturally tempting to display your app download or an affiliate’s app download to mobile website visitors. But when it comes in the form of a lightbox overlay or a splash page, it can really annoy users and even lead cost you rankings according to Google.

Your app download prompts should not directly interfere with the user while he or she is on your mobile website. Showing a banner below or above content is the better way to go, as it gives users more of a choice, and it doesn’t interrupt their activities.

The same placement rules for app downloads also apply to ads on your mobile website, if you have any. Nothing will make a user back out of a site more quickly than an onslaught of ads or a poorly placed pitch that negatively impacts his or her experience and ability to navigate your site.

Your target audience wants to see what you have to offer, so don’t steer them away! At Simply Design, we understand the importance that having a seamlessly functioning mobile site has on your business’ engagement and overall conversions. Schedule to meet with us today so we can get your mobile set on the right path!