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How to rank better online with a search-friendly mobile website

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How to rank better online with a search-friendly mobile website
By Stephanie Oley

If you’ve updated your website recently, you’ll know that its underlying structure has a large impact on search engine rankings. But did you know that, increasingly, Google ranks the mobile version of your site – not the desktop version?

That’s why mobile site design is one of the most hotly discussed topics at CCE’s various digital marketing workshops.

How to rank better online with a search-friendly mobile website

Why mobile website design is so important

Mobile has grown exponentially in the last few years. According to European analytics firm Sistrix, mobile searches made up 64.1 per cent of total online searches in in March 2021. By comparison, desktop searches stood at 35.9 per cent. Some sectors perform especially well in mobile search, including food and beverage, health, sports, news, lifestyle, automotive and retail.

Perhaps anticipating this shift, Google has been working on mobile-friendly indexing since 2015. Their focus has gradually transitioned from mobile-friendly to mobile-first and mobile-only indexing. Since Google dominates an estimated 92 per cent of global search traffic, according to Hubspot, it’s worth designing your site to comply with its algorithms.

Designing your website to be mobile-first

Achieving a mobile-first site design isn’t just about refining an already built website: you need a mobile-first mentality from the outset. With that said, the following six areas are particularly important.

1. Tappable rather than clickable interactions

In U/X (user experience), tapping and clicking are two very different actions. Understanding this difference is vital. For example, when browsing a site originally designed for navigation using mouse-clicks, simple actions such as pinching or scrolling can launch unintended actions on the mobile site. By contrast, a mobile-first site recognises the difference, in milliseconds, between a deliberate tap and an accidental click. Design features that support such tappable interactions include:

● Contrast: tappable elements stand out from the page background, and are sufficiently isolated from other elements to avoid accidental taps.

● Thumb zone: the elements should be positioned in a spot that’s easily reached using one thumb.

● Size: tappable elements need to cater for even the stubbiest of fingers and thumbs.

● Logic: clear text, graphics and other cues should be used to communicate the purpose of that step.

2. Drop-down menus

Maximise the space on your mobile page design by using a drop-down menu. The menu should easily retract to reveal the user’s original query, and unfurl again when needed. Drop-down menus help narrow the choices for users, and present the options neatly and compactly.

3. Vertical navigation

Not all sites are suited to a drop-down menu, but your navigation should still be vertical rather than horizontal. The vertical menu should be left-aligned, keyword-led and not hidden behind icons or other counterintuitive elements. Vertical navigation has other benefits as well, such as allowing for longer item names (since they aren’t side-by-side).Vertical navigation also makes it easier to add new items to your menus.

4. Strict content priorities

On a desktop-first site design, content tends to be partitioned in different corners. However, this is almost impossible on a mobile webpage, where content is usually stacked in a single column.

You may need to study your audience’s browsing behaviours to identify exactly what information they need at different stages of their journey. Your page design should then display only the essentials, with few links to related content.

For instance, a mobile ecommerce product page may only feature a product photo, product name, price and buy button. Meanwhile, the desktop version might add sections such as specifications, related products and more.

Remember to prioritise the content provided on the mobile page, though, as this is the primary information Google will use for its ranking assessment.

5. Localised and personalised search

As mobile devices become more prevalent, localised and personalised search is increasingly important – and can be linked to your digital marketing activities. Examples include displaying surfing products to a user accessing the mobile site from a well-known beach destination, but thick jackets for someone accessing from the highlands.

Personalisation also extends to related behaviours, such as suggesting mobile phone chargers to users who drive a lot. The same applies to other on-platform elements such as language options and currency indications.

6. Technical details to finesse

You’ll need to continuously adjust other details of your site design. This includes matching your mobile to your desktop content, and maintaining rigorous standards of tagging and descriptions. For example, use schema markups for videos, match image URLs, and revise your meta tags often. Performance is another area of scrutiny, and includes things like page loading speed, image size, and the number of widgets and plugins.

So remember, while Google’s algorithms change constantly, mobile is one of the most important attributes to get right. CCE offers more than 10 courses in different aspects of digital marketing that are impacted by such changes, such as digital strategy, search engine optimisation, Google Ads and more. You can also attend workshops in U/X (user experience) and web design. Our courses are led by industry practitioners who are at the forefront of all that change, delivering a level of insight that’s hard to gain any other way.

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