In this day and age, it is still surprising to see how many business owners completely overlook the impact of mobile technology. Still, many small business owners disregard mobile altogether without knowing the devastating effects it can have on the amount of traffic they get to their sites.
This is especially surprising considering that according to a study by Hitwise, more than 58% of all search engine traffic now comes from mobile devices. But what does it mean for the future of SEO and how can business owners take advantage of this new technology? Here are three methods every business owner can use to improve their mobile search results.
Focus on Social Media First
To get the most out of mobile marketing, it is important to understand the psychology of the common mobile user. Most mobile users want to be entertained first and foremost, and a wide portion of that entertainment comes from social media.
Every business owner who wants to improve its mobile marketing efforts should pay attention to social media first. Make sure that your content is entertaining and easily shareable. You can do this by adding clearly marked social media links wherever you can to encourage sharing, since mobile users tend to spend a huge portion of their days on social media.
Go Responsive
After Google introduced massive changes to its search algorithm, it also singled out responsive web design as the best option for website owners from a search perspective. Responsive web design allows websites to perform well across all platforms, whether it’s a desktop, laptop, tablet or other mobile device. Google also stated that websites that have poorly designed mobile websites will be penalized, so if your website uses an outdated or inexistent mobile design, this might have disastrous effects on your search engine results.
Whatever you do, don’t make the mistake of doing it yourself unless you have solid knowledge of mobile design. Many companies such as SEO Guru Atlanta offer mobile web design solutions to clients who want to improve their mobile marketing efforts (see their homepage here). There are also many tools you can use to create mobile versions of your site, but these won’t be as sophisticated as what you could get from a professional.
Improve User Experience
When it comes to mobile marketing, user experience is essential. Most users will simply not bother with a poorly designed site. First and foremost, it’s very important to understand that size matters and that your site’s navigation should be designed accordingly. For instance, your navigation should be streamlined to allow easy access to your website’s most important or popular pages. One easy way to do this is to adopt vertical menus for all your web pages to make navigation easier.
You should also focus on things like loading speeds, an overall great user interface, lower input fields and forms and other factors that will make your site more usable for your users.
Mobile marketing shouldn’t be something that should be feared, but used to your advantage instead. Mobile marketing really comes down to a few principles that, when used correctly, can reap enormous benefits for your business. Just remember to focus on user experience, build a responsive site that will look great on all platforms and focus on shareable and entertaining content your users will love.
Credit: Staff Writer
