Consider Your Mobile Presence for Local SEO

In this era of the internet, mobile devices rule the traffic. In fact, more than half of the web traffic came from mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, and phablets. Mobile search is overtaking the internet that by the end of 2016, about 60% of all searches are mobile-based.

Ever since, mobile traffic has been skyrocketing. It doesn’t show any signs of abating and it’s expected to soar further by 2020.

Why you should focus on mobile SEO

Mobile-based searches are so profitable that advertisers and website owners have spent $65.8 billion for mobile advertising this year alone. That’s more than double the recorded $28.7 billion back in 2015.

As much as advertisers and marketers know fully well that mobile is king, small businesses tend to forget how committed Google is to this algorithm.

Recently, the biggest search engine in the world rolled out the mobile-first indexing algorithm. Simply put, it will prioritize mobile versions of websites when indexing while the desktop version comes second.

Boosting user experience

Aside from the indexing part, mobile-responsive websites also transcend their benefits to user experience.

In fact, 88% of internet users who searched for a local business online will likely visit or call that business on the same day. Just imagine what your local business might be missing if you don’t migrate to the mobile standard.

However, you should know that the mobile-friendliness of a website isn’t just about how it renders its appearance on mobile devices. It’s also about using mobile-compatible SEO practices.

It’s more than just the top 10 results

Years ago, Google was only displaying the so-called “10 blue links” on its first page. These are the top ten search results for the entered query. But after many changes, the search engine has moved away from this outdated practice.

True enough, they introduced the Knowledge Graph, rich snippets, Google Posts, Google My Business, Local Packs, answer boxes, video clips, and more.

All of these give local businesses more space and opportunity to show up on the first page of SERPs.

So how does this translate to your mobile SEO efforts? Basic: don’t focus on the top 10 results alone. You should also factor in other elements on the page that you can exploit to increase your visibility on the web.

Content is king, always

In a mobile setting, marketers would have to deal with a smaller screen, shorter attention span, and limited space.

With this, they need to leverage their content in a way that uses the least scroll and one that uses anchor links so readers can navigate through the post with ease.

Also, when we talk about content, it’s more than a sea of text. You should use videos, images, and other forms of multimedia. In this era of mobile and viral culture, you simply can’t rely on traditional blogs and hope that internet users will take the time to read.

In case it’s unavoidable to publish long posts, a TL; DR summary on top will go a long way for readers. It will also help them pick the section they are most interested in; thus, reducing bounce rates.