With smart phones and other mobile devices becoming increasingly popular, it is becoming more important to take into account mobile-specific SEO when it comes to designing websites for these devices. A lot of people wrongly assume that mobile SEO is the same as SEO used in regular computers, but this is definitely not the case.
To begin with, the content and method of presentation differ greatly between websites designed for desktop computers or laptops and those designed for mobile devices. The main difference is in the screen size and pixelization, but the environments these devices are used in also differ. Mobile phone web browsing takes place in one of two environments – generally known as ‘on the move’ and ‘on the couch’.
The search engines that have been built specifically for use on mobile devices have also been built differently to those created for use on desktop computers and laptops. The user’s location, types of mobile device being used, and content format become more critical to SEO than keywords in mobile search engines.
This, however, is not to say that traditional SEO techniques should not be applied to mobile websites. Include keywords in your title tags, headings and content, as well as using the appropriate tags. After all, mobile website SEO is still based on the SEO principles used in traditional websites.
There are some areas where mobile website SEO differs to that of the traditional websites, and those areas include:
- the most important content needs to be placed in the top part of the web page to ensure search engine spiders, and users, can find it easily.
- CSS must be used for the layout in mobile websites, as tables will not render well at all.
- valid XHTML coding must be used, even though WML is the mobile-specific language; XHTML is more readable.
- it is recommended that the maximum size of any given web page for a mobile device does not exceed 20 kilobytes
It is also important to ensure that your mobile website focuses on localized SEO strategies. This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, as location is highly important in the ranking of websites in a mobile search, location-based SEO on your website will ensure better results. And secondly, mobile devices are most often used by people who want to find something locally. Localized SEO will ensure that potential customers find you.
So, while SEO for mobile websites must shift its focus to location, the type of device being used to browse and the format of the content, it is important to remember your traditional SEO principles.
