Mobile business isn’t something that is becoming more important. That’s like saying that a storm is coming when it’s already started to rain. Mobile is that storm, and it’s already here.

How design affects mobile SEO

You might not be worried too much about your website’s design when it comes to optimizing your site for mobile, but you should be.

Google has already been holding back sites that do not offer a well-optimized mobile-friendly website, keeping them from appearing in search results served to mobile users. This is a trend that is only going to continue, so the time to act is now!

The answer to this issue is responsive web design. While it’s become a bit of a buzz word, it’s a very valid solution to the problem of mobile-friendly design. Responsive design works by analyzing factors like device type and screen size and serving up a version of your website that is optimized for the user’s viewing conditions.

The good thing about responsive design is not only a better user experience, but a better experience for you as a website owner. You no longer have to create and maintain a separate website for mobile devices, now you can plan, execute, and optimize a single website for the vast majority of your customers.

From an SEO perspective you can help things along by avoiding anything that makes your website slow-loading such as images and videos that are not optimized for viewing on a mobile device – in short, avoid anything complicated, Flash-based, or anything with a large file size.

On page SEO + user satisfaction = great mobile SEO!

Video: Responsive web design and mobile devices: which information architecture is right for you?

How can you increase the effectiveness of your mobile SEO?

To help you get your feet planted firmly in the mobile SEO space, we’ve put together a short list of things you can do to get off to a good start.

• Have a mobile-friendly website – It might seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at how many businesses misinterpret this one or miss out on it entirely. Many people assume that this means they have to have a separate website that is just for mobile devices, maybe even a different website or every potential device…never mind the duplicate content implications of that one, that’s just too much work when there are other options out there!
• Use a responsive design – This one is easier than you think. If you use a CMS like WordPress to operate your website, there are a lot of themes out there that work on a fluid and responsive framework, making it easy to switch your website over to a more mobile-friendly format. Of course you’ll want to hire a professional web developer to oversee the transition.
• Aim for great user experiences – User experience is an important ranking factor in the eyes of Google, and it’s something that you should always aim to improve regardless of who’s endorsing it. The better the user experience, the more time a user will spend on your website, and the more opportunities you have to encourage a conversion of some kind. This is a win-win for you either way! Serving up a website that a user does not have to zoom in and out or scroll excessively to use is going to provide a vastly different experience than a website that is not optimized for mobile at all and requires users to perform the actions we just mentioned.

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Your takeaway

Doing business in a mobile environment isn’t the wave of the future, and it isn’t marketing’s next big thing anymore because it’s here already and cannot be put off any longer. If you haven’t started optimizing your website for mobile devices and a more mobile way of doing business you’re behind the curve and it’s time to catch up quick. With a little bit of help and hard work on behalf of your SEO and web development team you can have a clean, well-optimized website that is suited to a vast majority of active mobile devices and is ready to represent your business.