Mobile search engine optimization is the Holy Grail for medical and healthcare business websites. If you wish Google to rank your site well, it needs to work well on the Smartphone. You’ve got people everywhere searching for stuff, browsing, shopping, gossiping and paying bills online on the Smartphone, and Google knows that. Since the middle of 2015, Google’s algorithms need the pages of your website to be friendly to the mobile user, making mobile SEO very important.
To rank well on the search pages, your website must be very usable on the mobile phone. In other words, when someone opens your website on their mobile they shouldn’t have to zoom or pinch to go through the contents, or have to use all the fingers on their hand to scroll. They must be able to easily find what they need. And even after you’ve done all this, Googlebot must know that your site is mobile friendly. The sooner it knows it, the faster your website gets ranked higher. The faster you do it, you can get that much more traffic and possibly conversions.
Responsive Design for Mobile Friendliness
First, you need to choose how to make your website mobile-friendly, or how to create one that way. You can choose responsive design, dynamic serving or mobile URLs.
Responsive design is usually the most preferred manner since it involves the least risks in terms of SEO and can enable the website to perform well on both mobile and desktop. It is also the method Google recommends and is relatively easy to implement. You can do it in-house by using a responsive template or theme, or an experienced SEO company can help make your website design more responsive. It is easier for Google to understand that your site is mobile-friendly when you use responsive design, without the need to implement extra code.
Viewport Content for Google to Detect Responsiveness
Google does suggest the viewport content:
The viewport indicates to Googlebot that the window size of your webpage varies according to the screen size of the device, which ensures your web page does render correctly on mobile, tablet or desktop/laptop screens. The viewport is usually set already when you secure a readymade responsive template or theme.
You need to update the website code, which is simpler with content management systems. Responsive HTML templates are around for static sites. You can buy responsive themes and templates online.
Improving Website Speed
Increasing Loading Speed
The other steps you need to take include improving the speed of your website. Since mobile Internet networks are usually slower and less reliable than landline-based connections, a website that loads slow on a desktop would likely load slower on a mobile phone. Loading speed is critical to ensuring user satisfaction.
It is important to avoid too many graphic elements in a page which could slow it down. It must be interactive yet simple and easy to load. Page speed online checkers can help you analyze the speed of your site, and this is again something which your SEO outsourcing partner can help you with.
No Window Pop Ups and Interstitials
Compounding the page speed issue are window pop-ups. Window pop-ups can be quite irritating when viewing through the much smaller screen of a Smartphone, and they are irritating enough on a desktop. Google has also warned that such mobile interstitials can cause trouble with indexing, and disrupt user experience. They are therefore not mobile-friendly. Instead of pop-ups, banners or information bars would suffice.
Reducing Mobile Redirects
Another factor that hurts page speed is mobile redirecting. Thanks to the lesser speed of mobile networks, redirects are slow. Reducing mobile redirects can help pages load faster.
Ensuring Page Resources Aren’t Blocked
One of the most important factors to ensure mobile friendliness is content accessibility. Page resources shouldn’t be blocked. JavaScript, images and CSS must be seen by Googlebot.
It is important that you take these steps as soon as possible so that Google detects your mobile-friendliness, you get ranked higher, and you experience the benefits in terms of increased traffic and conversions. With improved mobile optimization comes increased ROI.
