A Guide To Optimizing Your Website For Mobile Use

How are your potential customers finding you online? Are they sitting down at their desktops, searching sites like Google? Or are they sitting in a coffee shop, searching from their mobile devices?

As the amount of mobile devices continues to grow, so does the need for mobile friendly websites. You can’t expect your graphically enhanced site to appear the same way on an iPhone or Android, and Flash sites simple don’t work. The last thing you want is your potential customer looking for you, and all that comes up is a “non-compatible” sign. That’s like saying, “I don’t want your business.”

Dig Deeper: Love Your iPod iPhone or iPad? Not with a Flash Website

But simply taking your existing website, and converting it into a mobile friendly site may not get you the results you are looking for. Searching on mobile devices is continuing to grow as technology improves, yet people aren’t searching in the same ways they do for conventional sites. Therefore its essential to think SEO for both your traditional sites, and for your mobile sites in slightly different ways.

Shorter Keywords

When a person sits down at a desktop computer, they have a full sized keyboard, and are usually dedicating a fair amount of time to find what they are looking for. They are willing to type out keyword searches again and again until they find what they are looking for, lengthening what they are searching for each time. Since mobile devices are used for more on-the-go functions, people aren’t as patient with their searching. With the smaller keyboards and smaller screens, people want to find what they are looking for in the quickest way possible.

Local Searching

People use mobile devices to navigate around their local area, no matter what they are looking for. If they want a restaurant close by for lunch, they will add local keywords to narrow the search. And with the way search engines work today, local searches are an automatic assumption, and are usually provided at the top of the list. Because of this, you need to be targeting your keywords based on geography. Think cities, communities, towns, states, countries – anything that separates you out based on the regions you serve.

Content Rules

When people type anything into the search engines, they are looking for specific information in return. That is no different with mobile searches, and in fact it increases the specificity of what they expect in return. If they expect directions and a map, they don’t want to search and click through several navigations to find it. The more specific you are with each page of content, the better results you will have attracting the right type of client.

What Happened To The Top 10?

When you search for something in Google from your desktop, Google will return the top 10 natural results, along with a few sponsored ads at the top and along the side. If you do the same search on a mobile device, your top 10 results will likely shrink down to 4 or 5. Therefore you can no longer rely on getting into the top 10 results to gain traction with potential customers; you must shoot for the top 5.

Relevancy

Online, people have search ADD. When they search, they click on ranked items, spend a few seconds looking at the results, and backing out of the site to try something else if it isn’t immediately apparent they’ve found what they are looking for. Mobile search ADD is even more prevalent. If things don’t pull immediately, has trouble loading, or isn’t mobile friendly, the user will immediately back out.

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clientexperience@todaysgrowthconsultant.com' About Virtual Photography

We're the co-founders of VirtualPhotographyStudio.com and have been writing on this blog since 2004. We started Virtual as a way to help photographers stretch beyond a part time income, and develop strategies to become a Five Figure Photographer or a Six Figure Photographer. Ultimately its all about lifestyle, and if your goal is to live as a photographer 24/7, we think you should have the knowledge and the tools to do so. Welcome!

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