8 Do-It-Yourself Mobile Marketing SEO Tips

Mobile Marketing: 8 Do-It-Yourself SEO Tips to Maintain Online Visibility

With so many people using smartphones today, mobile online marketing has now become one and the same with online marketing. Late last year (2016), Google started testing what is called a mobile-first index. When this index is rolled out and is actually used, searched engines will start to look at your website’s mobile version before looking at the website’s desktop version in order to determine the site’s ranking.

Websites that lack a mobile version or fail to have a quality mobile site will likely fall further back in the search engine result pages (SERPs) when this rollout occurs. Luckily, there are a number of mobile SEO tasks that you can perform all on your own.

If your content does not perform well across various mediums, then you're failing to take advantage of an excellent opportunity to engage with your audience, Similar to traditional SEO, mobile SEO is all about developing and tagging content so that it stands out digitally. This brief list of do-it-yourself mobile SEO tips is designed to help you protect your brand penalties that search engines hand out while also helping to maintain online visibility.

1. Create a Listing on Google My Business.

Probably the most important online business listing a brand can create is the Google My Business listing. It is simple and free to create. Simply fill out the information to the fullest extent possible and make sure to include images of your business – as many as you can. When users enter a search via a Google app or into a Google search engine, there is a good chance that they will see this information before anything else. So, make sure to make it count.

2. Review Your Directory Listings Regularly.

While Google My Business may be the most popular listing that mobile users will frequent, this is not the only listing they will come across when they are looking for your brand. There are plenty of others, such as Yelp, Facebook, TripAdvisor, Better Business Bureau, Angie’s List, and other local websites and business directories. It is important that you make sure that you look at these regularly, review them and update the information on them. This ensures that anyone searching for you constantly has the right information.

3. Go Social.

Social media accounts for about 80 percent of the time that users spend on mobile devices, which means that it has the potential to drive a lot of traffic to your site. In order to maintain visibility with users on smartphones, you need to prioritize your marketing strategy on social media. You need to engage with users, utilize platform-specific promotions, and/or post frequently to guarantee that your brand is one that stands out in a crowd.

4. Use Plugins to Your Advantage.

If you are using WordPress or any other similar platform, you will want to make sure that you are using the pre-installed plugins to your advantage, as these are specifically designed to enhance your website and make it much more user-friendly. On WordPress, there are many plugins that can help optimize images, improve the speed of your site and help take care of multiple SEO tasks. WPtouch is a plugin for WordPress that can help create a mobile-friendly version of your site that is approved by Google. If you are updating and optimizing your website on your own without the help of an expert, then plugins can develop be your best friend when it comes to maintaining online visibility.

5. Optimize Images.

Since it can take longer for pages to load om smartphones, you will need to focus on optimizing images specifically for mobile users. If you are not using a plugin to assist with images, you will need to use a page speed tool that can help you identify which images pose a speed issue and then either change its dimensions or compress them so that they’ll load faster.

6. Optimize for Local Searches.

Local SEO is crucial these days, especially when it comes to mobile marketing. In order to optimize for local searches, you will need to include your city and state in several different locations – the URL, title tags, meta description and H1 heading.

7. Utilize Keywords for Content Visibility.

When users use their mobile phones to make a search, it is done differently than when they use their desktops. Therefore, it is imperative that you optimize for this to ensure that your content remains in front of the most appropriate users. You can purchase tools that can help you with this, or you can utilize Google’s Search Analytics to help you locate keyword comparisons based on the device being used.

8. Prepare All Content for Smartphones.

Apart from searching differently, mobile users tend to also digest content in a different way. While it is true that scan-friendly, readable content tends to be more favorable for mobile users, the only way you can be certain is to test it. You can use an A/B format to see which type of content is going to perform best for your mobile users.

It won’t be long before mobile SEO outdoes desktop SEO altogether. To make certain that your website maintains its visibility in both desktop and mobile searches, you are going to want to get a head start by utilizing the aforementioned DIY tips and possibly even working with a professional like our team here at WebDetail. It won’t take much to start boosting your online presence and driving some traffic to your website and local clients to your doorstep.