Mobile Search Queries to Surpass Desktop; Here’s What You Should Do Next
Google confirmed it earlier that they have found more search queries on smartphones than on desktops. Google’s Jerry Dischler recently wrote in a post that “more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries, including the U.S and Japan.”
Now that mobile search query has already surpassed desktop queries, marketers should start thinking about reaching their goals in a different way. Those who are still thinking of mobile as secondary importance, your business may start to suffer. To avoid such circumstances, it’s high time when you should start with optimizing your website for mobile visitors.
What are the points to be kept in mind when optimizing websites for mobile users? Here are a few tips for you:
Focus on Responsive Design
Google recommends responsive design as the #1 design pattern. Having a responsive design website will help you enjoy certain number of benefits:
Responsive design helps you serve the same content to users from a single URL, regardless of device. Because of this Google crawls only one version of website, which makes it easier for them to find and rank your content.
Instead of maintaining two websites, you just need to keep one set of resources. Loading time also reduces because responsive design uses single URL for all the pages on any device.
Ensure you set a mobile viewport
Have you seen any website on your smartphone where the content is too small to read? Check out your webpage too and if there is any such issue where user needs to zoom in and out to read your content. This happens when the mobile viewport is not set. Setting a mobile viewport will allow the page to show content matching different screen sizes.
Don’t Block the Crawling of Any Page Asset’s
To get found in search, it is crucial that Google’s spiders crawls your image files, CSS and Java files. Ensure that you are not blocking any page assets; otherwise Google’s algorithm won’t be able to index you.
Make your text, images and design work for mobile devices
As majority of users prefer browsing web via mobile devices, it is important to check whether the design, images and text of your webpage is working properly on a smartphone or not.
Here are a few tips for your help;
- Enlarge font size
Small fonts are not readable and users need to zoom in to read the content. Larger fonts allow better user experience, no matter which device you are using.
- Appealing call to action messages
Your CTA message should have something that will convince readers’ avail of your products or services. Create something catchy. It should be written in the right form.
- High quality images
Images play a crucial role in determining the growth rate of visitors. Large file sizes take longer time to load on mobile. To optimize images, its better you use high quality photos, having compressed file size.
- Use alt text
- Help your visitors have better experience by using alt text which renders in place of images. Alt text is a text field describing an image in a way people and computers can read.
- Make mobile-friendly videos
To provide good experience to mobile users, use HTML5 for the videos and animations instead of media players like Flash.
- Synchronize text & Imagery
When designing the look of website, ensure to keep a proper balance between live text and imagery. Consider the spacing around the text boxes and images to ensure your webpage is legible and easy to interact with.
Focusing on these points will definitely help you make your website mobile-friendly. It’s high time when you should start with preparing your new marketing strategy.
