Your mobile navigation (menus and internal links) contributes to all three and must work for users and for SEO.

Good mobile navigation makes it easy for people to find what they need without bogging down page speed or cluttering the screen. Your mobile menu and other navigation links also need to keep PageRank flowing to the important pages that you want to rank well in search.

Site navigations historically included everything on a site in huge, multi-tiered lists. On mobile, that approach doesn’t work. It looks cluttered. It requires scrolling. And it causes your visitors to bounce away.

Bruce explains why mobile navigation decisions affect SEO and UX.

Make life easier for people visiting your business site on a mobile device.

Here are seven mobile-friendly navigation best practices:

1. Keep mobile navigation short and sweet
2. List the most important pages first
3. Think of search as part of your navigation
4. Make your navigation intuitive
5. Be thoughtful about fonts and contrast
6. Design for touch
7. Design for the multi-screen mobile user

FAQ: How can I optimize my website’s navigation for mobile users to enhance user experience and SEO?

Note: All of the mobile navigation tips mentioned in this article equally apply to separate mobile sites, responsive design sites, and sites that dynamically serve web pages. If you’re not sure what that means or which mobile platform is best for you, read our Cheat Sheet for Mobile Design.

7 Mobile Navigation Best-Practice Steps for UX & SEO

Step 1: Keep Mobile Navigation Short and Sweet

Many mobile phone screens are only 720 pixels wide in portrait mode.

Designing mobile navigation means designing for a small screen size. With limited real estate available, there’s no room for clutter. Get right to the point, then cut the fat.

Keep your labels as short as possible while still communicating clearly. But also limit the number of options in your mobile menus.

Ask yourself, what links need to be included to help your user complete priority tasks? What elements from the desktop navigation aren’t relevant in the mobile environment?

To save your user from decision paralysis, we recommend you limit your mobile navigation to four to eight items on the top level. Your mobile navigation menu is not the place to link to every page in your site.

To keep it short and sweet, you may even consider adding a top-of-page logo that navigates to the homepage and leaving the Home button out of your navigation together (as on the BCI website below).

Some mobile menus require multi-level navigation to aid user experience. This is more common with ecommerce websites. If you must go there, keep it as simple as possible. Don’t add more than one sublevel of drop-down functionality.

If your navigation must include more items, a vertically oriented navigation activated from a menu icon is the best option.

If your mobile user’s typical needs are very limited, consider using a static navigation that runs across the top of your design, as we see on the GameStop mobile site:

Navigation that requires horizontal scrolling probably won’t be mobile-friendly. Some sites have the resources to design a sleek image-based carousel type of interface, such as what Google uses for certain search results. That might be an exception but consider your audience.

Step 2: List the Most Important Pages First

Your website users don’t have a lot of time — or patience. How can you help them get to the right place faster?

To design your mobile site navigation, first think about the following:

• What are your most important pages?
• What are the top category pages outlined in your siloing strategy?
• What are the most common actions taken by site visitors using smartphones?
• What pages of your website most effectively satisfy a mobile user’s needs?

The answers to these questions influence not just which items go in your main menu, but also which links and calls to action you should put on each page.

You’ll want to keep your main navigation menu consistent throughout the site. It should point to the top four to eight landing pages (such as main category pages).

A short-and-sweet mobile nav is a win-win for SEO and your users. It preserves the flow of link equity to your most important pages while also helping users get around.

Once users arrive on a page, contextual links can move them to wherever makes sense. These links can be added within the body content of each page in a comfortable way.

For instance, a long blog post may have multiple sections and thousands of words. Have mercy on your mobile users — don’t make them scroll to find what may be pertinent to them. Some ideas:

• Give anchor links at the top that jump a reader to the different sections below (as I did at the top of this article). This may also help search engines identify fragments of your content that answer specific search queries.
• Show a TL;DR summary at the top of a long article. If readers want more detail, they’ll scroll down.
• Include useful calls to action and links to related pages within the body copy where they make sense.

The mobile navigation model I’m describing — a short, consistent main menu coupled with contextual links that vary per page — actually supports siloing better than the massive structured menus of old. A parent only links to their children, maintaining a clear hierarchy and intuitive flow. Internal links allow PageRank to flow to topically related pages naturally.

This mobile navigation model — a short, consistent main menu coupled with contextual links that vary per page — actually supports siloing better than a massive, multi-tiered menu.
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When it comes to mobile users, quicker is always better! It will take some work for you to make each page deliver the most appropriate navigation options. But you’ll improve user experience and, no doubt, your ROI by giving visitors a more direct path to what they need.

While we’re on the topic of “quicker,” remember that fast mobile pages make for a better user experience. Google announced that a page’s load speed can factor into your Google search rankings, so the building of streamlined navigation is a worthwhile mobile SEO service to consider.

You can test your mobile page speed with Google’s mobile speed test (or use our SEOToolSet®).

Step 3: Think of Search as Part of Your Navigation

Mobile users look at search as navigation, and you should, too.

Consider Amazon.com. On mobile, Amazon doesn’t even bother with the category drop-down menu (although it’s there under “Departments” if someone wants it). What’s prominent at the top of the mobile view is a simple “Search” box.

Even with its massive catalog, Amazon doesn’t expect users to navigate through menus to find what they need. Most of the time, customers just type in a product name and go directly to buy it.

On mobile, your search box is often the most direct route to what a user needs.

Set it up and make sure it works well!

Step 4: Make Your Navigation Intuitive

Your customers work hard enough; navigating your site should not be work.

To make your navigation intuitive, menu language should always be written in a way that lets the user know what to expect. It should be clear what the item does if it’s a dropdown and exactly where it goes if it’s a link.

If you are using symbols to convey information to your users, make sure they are clear and conventional symbols. For instance, if your menu items drop-down, use an intuitive symbol like a plus sign (+) or an arrow (>) to let your users know that they can click to see more options.

Another best practice example would be using a magnifying glass to indicate a search feature.

If you are using a toggle menu, use three stacked lines — the icon highlighted in the example below — to help the user easily find your main nav.

TIP: A hamburger-style menu icon like this may get more clicks if the word “menu” displays below it according to A/B testing. If your design has room, you might test this to see if it makes your mobile site more intuitive and increases clicks/conversions.

The goal is for your mobile navigation to make life easier by limiting thinking, scrolling, and clicking.

About Breadcrumbs in SERPs
It’s worth noting that since 2015, Google has displayed URLs in its mobile search results differently than it does in desktop SERPs. The change replaces a web page’s URL with a description of the page’s location in a breadcrumbs-like format. If this doesn’t scream the importance of siloing and a clear hierarchy, nothing does!

Now, rather than showing a page URL, Google’s mobile search results display a breadcrumb path beneath each title.

For example, mobile search results for “history of Google” include a Wikipedia result showing how the URL appeared in the past versus the current breadcrumb style:

TIP: You can control how your breadcrumb URLs appear if you add schema markup to the HTML on your pages. Refer to Schema.org’s breadcrumbs structured data for details and Google’s help file on breadcrumbs. (For more on this update and what it means, see our post-Google’s New Mobile Breadcrumb URLs: Making the Most of Your Site Name & URL Structure.)

Step 5: Be Thoughtful about Fonts and Contrast

Your website users shouldn’t have to zoom in to read any of the text on your mobile website, including the text within your navigation.

Tiny text that requires zooming creates a bad user experience, and neither your website users nor Google or Bing likes poor user experiences.

All of the text on your mobile site needs to be large enough to be read on a variety of devices without zooming. This principle needs to be a top priority that you consider as you build your mobile-friendly CSS (cascading style sheets) to control the appearance of text on various devices.

To make your navigation text easy to read, choose a font that naturally adds enough space to distinguish between letters and is tall enough to be clearly read in a menu.

Your font size and style also depend on your brand’s style guide and what fits your unique demographic. For instance, a young audience may not struggle with smaller or condensed fonts as much as an older demographic would. The way you handle formatting such as bullet styles, capitalization, margins, captioning, and so on should also reflect what’s attractive to your audience and comfortable for them to read.

Once you decide, set up your CSS and create a written style guide to keep your content consistent.

For designing the look of your mobile navigation, best practices can’t give you a one-size-fits-all recommendation. What’s important is that every word on your mobile site can be read easily without zooming. I recommend you perform user testing to see first-hand whether your font is tripping up users.

Also, make sure there’s sufficient contrast between your text and its background. WebAIM guidelines offer rules for color contrast (recommending a minimum ratio of 4.5 to 1). You can try their contrast checker tool to see how your text treatment measures up.

Google gives a few examples of what different contrast ratios look like:

In addition, Google points out that “classic readability theory suggests that an ideal column should contain 70 to 80 characters per line (about 8 to 10 words in English). Thus, each time the width of a text block grows past about 10 words, consider adding a breakpoint.”

This tip applies to body text; consider a shorter maximum length for your menu options.

Not sure if your text is easy to read? Run your site through Google’s Mobile Friendly Test tool.

Step 6: Design for Touch

Tablet and smartphone users rely on touchscreens to get them around websites. While a pointy mouse arrow allows users to precisely select items in tight spaces, the average finger or thumb requires a larger target to press. Many users don’t hit a touchscreen exactly where they are aiming.

Google recommends building mobile pages with a minimum touch target size of 48 pixels with a properly set viewport (more on that later). And touch targets should be spaced about 32 pixels apart, both horizontally and vertically.

Build navigation buttons with a target smaller than 40 pixels, and your user experience plummets. Visitors end up sloppily navigating to the category above or below the one they want.

Don’t frustrate your users!

Since people are so bad at hitting their tap mark much of the time, it can also help to incorporate touch feedback into your navigation. Your feedback could be a color change, a blink of color, a font change, or another visual cue.

Even if it’s subtle, this feedback can improve user experience by helping to reassure users that they’ve selected the right item. Take a look at the example below from Search Engine Land:

If you are using multi-tier navigation, it’s also important that you make sure your drop-downs are activated by touch — not mouseover. Clearly, hover navigations work just fine in the desktop experience, where hovering is a possibility. But they leave mobile users stuck.

Another touch-friendly option is to design a supplementary navigation that uses images and exaggerated graphic buttons. This type of navigation can be a great homepage asset that gets your visitor headed in the right direction quickly.

It’s important to note that graphic buttons like these should only be a supplemental option used alongside a toggle navigation or a static top navigation. You need to have a consistent navigation that the user can access at the top of every page.

While you may be able to include this graphic navigation at the bottom of your mobile pages, it’s not optimal or practical to use these big graphic buttons as your primary navigation. And always consider the load-time performance impact of images and buttons.

Be Careful with Popups
You also want to avoid intrusive interstitials — those popups that monopolize the screen when a visitor clicks through from a search result. In January 2017, Google rolled out an intrusive interstitial penalty for mobile search, which may grow in importance when intrusive interstitials get rolled into Google’s Page Experience update.

Per Google, “Since screen real-estate on mobile devices is limited, any interstitial negatively impacts the user’s experience.”

Be careful to use interactive forms and popups courteously. Some best practices for these include:

• Apply a delay or time interval between views so you don’t annoy your visitors.
• Reduce the amount of screen space your element covers.
• Try a bar or box that scrolls in from the bottom or side.
• Avoid covering the middle of the mobile screen or obstructing your navigation elements at the top.
• Let no be no. If a user closes a form, don’t display it again within a reasonable period of time (perhaps a week later).

Step 7: Design for the Multi-Screen Mobile User

Chances are good that interested visitors come to your website using multiple devices over a short period of time.

To help them feel confident they’re in the right place, it’s smart to give your mobile and desktop sites a consistent visual theme.

Your mobile and desktop navigation, however, do not have to be — and sometimes should not be — identical twins.

While the colors, fonts, and themes you use for your mobile and desktop navigation need to be consistent to reinforce your branding, the similarity may end there.

Your mobile navigation needs to help users navigate around your website and accomplish tasks. Consider the content your smartphone users need and the tasks they are looking to accomplish, and then build your mobile navigation specifically for a smartphone user.

• What mobile-specific calls to action need to be built into your navigation to aid user experience?
• Does it make sense to include a “Call” button or a store locator?
• Can a mobile user easily find essential information like your address, directions, phone number, hours of operation, or other facts?

Remember: Space is limited, mobile needs are unique, and on-the-go patience is minimal.

Because website visitors will use a variety of devices and screen sizes, specify a viewport using the viewport meta tag.

Common mobile mistakes include having a fixed-width viewport that doesn’t scale for all devices or assuming too wide of a viewport, which forces users on small screens to scroll horizontally.

Mobile-Friendly is Customer-Friendly

Creating a mobile-friendly navigation means creating a customer-friendly navigation that gets your personas moving in the right direction right away.

If you build an intuitive navigation that is easy to use, your website users will be headed toward conversion happiness in no time. Build a navigation that is frustrating or confusing, and they’ll be headed back to the search results and straight toward someone else’s website.

To keep your inbound visitors smiling, follow these best practices to make your mobile-friendly navigation:

 Short and sweet whenever possible
Easy to read
Task-oriented
Prioritized with what’s most important listed first
Accessible and placed consistently across all pages
Clear, straightforward, and expected
Vertical if scrolling is required (never use horizontal scrolling!)
Easy on the eyes
 Finger-friendly
Fast

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EDITOR’S NOTE: We regularly update this article for the Bruce Clay Blog.

FAQ: How can I optimize my website’s navigation for mobile users to enhance user experience and SEO?

Mobile website navigation optimization involves a delicate balance between simplicity and functionality. A cluttered navigation menu can overwhelm users, leading to higher bounce rates. To streamline navigation, prioritize essential menu items that guide visitors to your core content. Implement collapsible menus or a well-designed hamburger menu to preserve screen real estate while providing access to secondary sections.

Smooth transitions between pages are equally vital. Slow-loading pages can frustrate users and negatively impact SEO rankings. Compress and optimize images to minimize loading times. Leveraging lazy loading ensures that images load as users scroll, enhancing both speed and overall performance.

The concept of “thumb-friendly” navigation holds paramount importance in mobile design. Given the limited screen space, ensure that buttons and interactive elements are appropriately sized for easy tapping. Extensive forms or intricate actions can be off-putting; simplify them to encourage user engagement.

Structured data markup is a potent tool often overlooked in mobile optimization. Implementing schema markup enhances your website’s appearance on search engine results pages (SERPs), providing users with quick access to relevant information. Rich results, such as breadcrumbs, ratings, and product information, can significantly improve click-through rates.

Prioritize a responsive design that adapts to various screen sizes, ensuring a consistent device experience. Regularly test your mobile site’s performance and user experience, and adapt as needed.

Step-by-Step Procedure: Optimizing Mobile Website Navigation for User Experience and SEO

1. Audit Current Navigation: Evaluate your website’s current mobile navigation structure to identify pain points and areas for improvement.
2. Prioritize Content: Determine your core content and essential menu items. Streamline the navigation menu to focus on these key elements.
3. Implement Collapsible Menus: Integrate collapsible menus or a hamburger menu to conserve space while providing access to secondary content.
4. Ensure Fast Loading: Optimize images for the web and implement lazy loading to enhance page loading speeds.
5. Design for Tapping: Make interactive elements, buttons, and links thumb-friendly in size to facilitate easy tapping.
6. Simplify Forms and Actions: Streamline complex forms and actions, reducing friction and encouraging higher user engagement.
7. Utilize Structured Data: Implement schema markup to enhance your website’s appearance on SERPs and drive click-through rates.
8. Responsive Design: Develop a responsive design that adapts seamlessly to various screen sizes and orientations.
9. Test Across Devices: Regularly test your mobile website on different devices to ensure consistent performance and user experience.
10. Monitor Analytics: Monitor user behavior and engagement using analytics tools to identify further optimization opportunities.
11. Optimize Page Speed: Continuously optimize your mobile site’s performance by minimizing code, leveraging caching, and using content delivery networks (CDNs).
12. Focus on Intuition: Design intuitive navigation that anticipates user needs, making information retrieval effortless.
13. Use Descriptive Labels: Use clear and concise navigation menu labels to enhance user understanding.
14. Breadcrumb Navigation: Implement breadcrumb navigation for easy backtracking and improved user orientation.
15. Regular Updates: Keep your website’s mobile navigation up-to-date, reflecting any changes in content or structure.
16. Mobile-First Indexing: Be aware of Google’s mobile-first indexing, where the mobile version of your site is prioritized for ranking.
17. User Feedback: Gather user feedback and integrate suggestions to refine your mobile navigation strategy.
18. Optimize Images: Compress and optimize images to balance visual appeal and loading speed.
19. A/B Testing: To determine the most effective design, perform A/B testing with different navigation layouts.
20. Continuous Improvement: Mobile optimization is an ongoing process. Stay updated with industry trends and adapt your strategy accordingly.

The post How to Create a Mobile-Friendly Navigation in 7 Steps appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

• Optimizing your site for mobile SEO
• Choosing the right mobile configuration 
• Must-Do mobile SEO
• Mobile UX optimization 
• FAQ: How can I optimize my website for mobile SEO?

Why is mobile optimization a top priority for SEOs today?

Page Experience: the Page Experience update focuses a lot on mobile and speed. And it is hard to discuss one without the other. Please read our Page Experience eBook on that subject, then come back.

But back to mobile…

First, mobile internet usage exceeds​ desktop. People using smartphones ​make up ​more than half the consumer traffic to top sites globally. Certainly, it varies widely by industry, but it is significant for every site.

Second, more searches take place on smartphones than on desktop computers, according to Google.

As a result, Google has switched to a “mobile-first index.” The search engine crawls and indexes the mobile version of a website. In other words, whatever shows to mobile users is what counts for ranking purposes.

Satisfying mobile users is the search engines’ top priority. ​It’s no wonder they look closely at how ​your site treats its mobile visitors before giving you a high ranking.

Mobile SEO is crucial not just because smartphone users are the majority but also because Google and Bing use mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal in mobile search.

Is your site’s mobile SEO ​everything it needs to be? In this lesson, you learn how to:

• Optimize your website to be found in mobile search.
• See how many mobile visitors you have today.
• Pick between 3 ways to set up your mobile site.
• Make sure your site is really mobile-friendly.
• Improve ​your mobile user experience (UX) and page-load speed.

Optimizing Your Site for Mobile SEO

The shift to “mobile first” may require some refocusing for your website and its search engine optimization.

First, local searchers are where it’s at.

Most searches yield a different set of results on smartphones than on desktops (62 percent according to research). One reason is that mobile results factor in location much more heavily than desktop results do.

Search engines want to show results located near the mobile searcher — particularly for queries with local intent such as “coffee shop,” “dry cleaner,” or the increasingly common “near me” searches.

So, if you operate a local or location-based business, your first mobile-SEO ​task is to set up your business correctly for local search. Standardize your NAP (name, address, phone number) in your site’s metadata and wherever your business is listed. And make sure your business is verified with both Google My Business and Bing Places for Business.

Whether you’re a local business or not, every website must prepare to welcome mobile visitors and be found in mobile search.

How many mobile users access your site?

Let’s look at your audience specifically. How much of your website traffic comes from mobile devices now?

You can tell how people access your website with a glance at your Google Analytics (it’s free software, and we highly recommend you install Google Analytics if you haven’t already). As the image below shows, if you select Mobile > Overview from the Audience menu, you’ll see the exact percentage of site visitors coming to your website on a desktop vs. smartphone vs. tablet.

You might be surprised to see that a large number of people already find you using a mobile device.

Mobile SEO Part 1: Choosing the Right Mobile Configuration

The key to a good mobile user experience lies in choosing the best way to set up your mobile website. Many websites are misconfigured for mobile search or not configured at all, resulting in a huge loss in smartphone traffic.

Mobile ​search rankings won’t vary much based on which mobile configuration you choose to implement as long as ​you offer a good experience and similar content on all devices. The biggest impact will be on user experience and site maintenance.

Three Sitewide Setup Options

• Responsive design serves up the same content and URLs across all devices but alters the layout and formatting to fit the user’s window size (accomplished with CSS). This is Google’s preferred mobile configuration. It takes less work to maintain a responsive site since ​there’s only one version of the content to update. One possible downside for UX and SEO​ — page load speed may be slower with a responsive design than with the other mobile configurations. Care must be taken to preserve fast-loading pages (see Part 2 for more on safeguarding speed). TIP: To implement a responsive design, you need HTML templates that can resize automatically based on the user’s device using CSS rules. If your website is on WordPress, this can be as simple as buying and installing a mobile-ready, responsive theme.
• Dynamic serving uses the same page URLs but different content depending on what device is being used to access your website. This dynamic solution works well if mobile users and desktop users have different motives, or if you want to serve content like videos, ads, and other large files to desktop users but don’t want to bog down your mobile experience.TIP: Dynamic serving requires the use of an HTTP “vary response” header so search engines don’t think you’re trying to hide content (see technical SEO tips for more on avoiding cloaking and other red flags).
• A separate mobile site requires maintaining two separate websites with different URLs and different HTML content on each. This configuration can be best if mobile users have very different needs than desktop users, but site maintenance involves twice the work. You also run the risk of creating duplicate content for search engines if you aren’t careful (see Part 2 for more on this).TIP: Because of Google’s mobile-first index, make sure a separate m-dot site has enough content and features (such as schema markup, content, etc.) to rank well on its own.

Read more: A Cheat Sheet for Mobile Design explains pros and cons of each of these mobile configurations, while 8 Common Mobile Website Pitfalls to Avoid for SEO helps ensure proper implementation from the get-go if you choose the separate-mobile-site option. Google also ​offers ​help for implementing the three different options here: Mobile SEO Overview.

Part 2: Must-Dos

There are a few things you MUST do, no matter which configuration you use. ​This section​ explains four technical tasks to put on your mobile SEO checklist …

1. Be mobile-friendly.

The basic prerequisite for earning a mobile-friendly SEO boost is passing Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Since that’s determined on a page-by-page basis, check each of your important pages. The results will list issues you might need to fix or give you the “mobile-friendly” green light:

For more tips on creating a mobile-friendly website, please refer to our 7 Mobile-Friendly Navigation Best Practices post.

2. Tell search engines which page is formatted for mobile.

Search engines look for cues in your HTML code that are different for each type of mobile configuration.

• Responsive sites should put the following meta tag in the head of each web document to signal that the page will adapt to all devices:
  <meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0″>
• Dynamically served sites need to use the Vary HTTP header in their response to each request. (For more information, see Google’s Help on setting up dynamic serving.)
• Separate mobile and desktop sites need to include <link> tags with rel=”canonical” and rel=”alternate” elements to show the corresponding URL for each page. (For more, see Google’s Help on annotating desktop and mobile URLs.)

3. Keep all page assets crawlable.

As a rule, you shouldn’t block search engines from seeing your CSS files, image files, JavaScript files, and any other resources needed to render the page. They want to see the page as it appears to users. So permit all search engine user-agents — Googlebot, Bingbot and all their cronies — to crawl page resources freely. (Tip: See Step 16 for how to use robots.txt appropriately.)

You can double​-check that everything can be crawled using Google’s Fetch and Render tool inside of Search Console.

4. Design for a good user experience on small devices.

Mobile visitors are limited by their device’s small screen size and reduced bandwidth. Keep reading for common mistakes to avoid and best practices for satisfying their needs so they’ll have a good experience on your site.

Part 3: Mobile UX Optimization – Making Users Happy

When it comes to your mobile SEO strategy, user experience (UX) is the single most important factor for success. Welcome visitors with a fast-loading site and good mobile design. These things impact your site’s rankings, since search engines want to give their searchers a satisfying experience.

Follow these tips for optimizing your mobile user experience to welcome potentially high-converting mobile visitors to your website.

Optimize your mobile site for faster page-loading times.

As we discussed in Step 16 of this SEO guide, slow page-load speed can have a negative impact on your rankings. On a mobile device, a slow site feels even slower! This kind of poor user experience can kill your chances for mobile traffic and conversions. Google knows this, which is why they offer a mobile and a desktop version of their PageSpeed tool.

What are the biggest culprits of a slow mobile site?

Images. Optimizing those fat images for mobile SEO is the No. 1 thing you can do to improve mobile UX. The larger your image file sizes, the longer it will take your web pages to load, especially on a phone or other mobile device. Ways to keep your image files small include compressing your images, resizing images to make them smaller, and specifying the width and height dimensions in your HTML image tags.

Videos can also cause your web pages to take too long to load. Consider embedding smaller or lower quality videos to reduce the amount of data required, as long as it doesn’t impact the viewing experience too much on faster devices. Another option for downloads of videos and other large files is to offer several download sizes. ​Then users can choose which one best fits their current bandwidth and device. Always look for ways to satisfy your various users’ needs and give each visitor a good experience on your site.

Consider using AMP or PWAs.​

Another speed solution is AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), a Google-led open-source project for making the mobile web faster. AMP is not for every site, as on-page functionality is limited. But AMP results do load nearly instantly for mobile searchers and get special treatment (not rankings, though) in Google results. (Read more about AMP and how to implement it with our quick start guide.)

PWAs (progressive web apps) offer another technical solution for fast mobile pages. Just starting to make waves in the digital marketing industry, using PWAs lets you program one website/app hybrid that works on all screen sizes. (Read more about PWAs​.)

Keep your mobile site simple and easy to navigate.

Have you ever visited a website from your smartphone that made you zoom and reposition the screen just so you could see it? A poor user experience like this causes most people to leave the site and find another with a more optimal mobile user experience.

When it comes to mobile search, less is more. Make every word count with valuable content that is:

• Written with the mobile user’s perspective in mind.
• Easy to access with large tap targets and clear navigation options.
• Readable with large enough text in a font that’s legible on a small screen.
• All in all, mobile-friendly. (Tip: Remember to check your important pages in Google’s free Mobile-Friendly Test tool to see if they pass.)

Tailor your content to fit the needs of your audience.

Keep in mind that a mobile user’s search intentions probably vary from that of a desktop user conducting a similar search.

A mobile user searching for Chinese food may be looking for a phone number to order takeout. A desktop user searching for the same thing may be looking for an online ordering option for delivery.

Design your content to give users what they need.

For instance, in our responsive design for BruceClay.com (pictured), the navigation menu stays tucked neatly out of the way. But mobile users can access it as needed with the easy-to-tap ​menu button. We also added a prominent call option since we figured if someone is using a mobile phone to check out our various digital marketing services, they’ll probably want to talk to us.

TIP: Make sure you include enough content on your mobile site to support your long-tail rankings due to Google’s mobile-first index. Also, include markup there to qualify for featured snippets and other search results page enhancements. (See our Schema Markup Guide for more details.)

SEO GUIDE BONUS VIDEO

This video answers common webmaster questions about mobile-SEO best practices for tap targets, margins, and font sizes.

Google gives specific technical advice here on how to create mobile pages that focus on the user.

Finally …

Be sure to monitor how well your mobile SEO is performing. Many sites look at data for the whole website only, without realizing the story may be completely different for mobile vs. tablet vs. desktop users. Don’t miss out on opportunities to “tweak” your mobile SEO for a ​more mobile-friendly user experience and a better conversion rate.

Speaking of monitoring — it’s time to show you the ongoing tasks every SEO needs to know. Next, in the tutorial, you’ll learn how to monitor your website rankings and other key performance indicators (KPIs) to track your SEO progress over time.

Next Lesson

FAQ: How can I optimize my website for mobile SEO?

Mobile devices have quickly become the main entry points to the internet, necessitating website owners to optimize their sites for mobile search engine optimization (SEO). This article will give you valuable insight into this field.

Understanding Mobile SEO

To kick things off, it’s essential that we define mobile SEO clearly. Mobile SEO involves optimizing your website so it appears well on mobile search engine result pages (SERPs). Google and other search engines tend to favor mobile-friendly sites since mobile traffic accounts for a significant percentage of web visits, so you must adapt your site in accordance with mobile-first indexing criteria.

Mobile-Friendly Design and Responsive Layouts

One of the fundamental aspects of mobile SEO optimization is ensuring your website has a mobile-friendly design. This involves creating responsive layouts that adapt seamlessly to various screen sizes. Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means it primarily considers the mobile version of your site for ranking purposes. Ensure your website’s design is responsive and its content easily accessible on smaller screens.

Page Speed and Mobile Performance

Mobile users expect information quickly, making site load time an integral factor of mobile SEO success. Compress images, leverage browser caching, and minimize HTTP requests to enhance your site’s mobile performance. Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool can help identify areas for improvement.

Optimizing Content for Mobile

Mobile SEO relies heavily on content. Aim to craft easily scannable and consumable information on mobile devices by including bullet points or subheadings in long paragraphs. Additionally, ensure your images are appropriately sized and use descriptive alt tags for accessibility.

Mobile SEO Testing and Monitoring

Lastly, regularly test and monitor your website’s mobile SEO performance. Use tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test and Google Search Console to identify issues and opportunities. Continuously analyze your mobile traffic data and adjust your strategies accordingly.

Step-by-Step Procedure for Mobile SEO Optimization

1. Understand the importance of mobile UX for marketing.
2. Ensure your website has a mobile-friendly design with responsive layouts.
3. Prioritize page speed optimization for mobile devices.
4. Compress images, leverage browser caching, and minimize HTTP requests to improve mobile performance.
5. Create concise and scannable content that is easy to consume on mobile screens.
6. Use shorter paragraphs, bullet points, and subheadings to break up text for better readability.
7. Optimize images by appropriately sizing them and using descriptive alt tags.
8. Regularly test your website’s mobile-friendliness using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.
9. Use Google Search Console to monitor and identify mobile SEO issues and opportunities.
10. Continuously analyze your mobile traffic data to refine your mobile SEO strategies.
11. Adapt your website to meet mobile-first indexing requirements set by search engines.
12. Monitor the mobile user experience on your site and make improvements as needed.
13. Stay updated with the latest mobile SEO trends and algorithm changes.
14. Conduct keyword research specifically for mobile search queries.
15. Implement structured data markup for mobile SERP enhancements.
16. Optimize your website’s local SEO for mobile users, including accurate location information.
17. Ensure that your website is accessible to users with disabilities on mobile devices.
18. Implement a mobile sitemap to help search engines crawl and index your mobile content.
19. Test your website’s mobile compatibility across various devices and browsers.
20. Stay vigilant and adapt your mobile SEO strategy as mobile technology evolves and user behaviors change.

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