Mobile SEO Tactics for Small Businesses

Page Speed is Critical

Web pages on mobile devices typically load slower, especially if the internet connectivity isn’t the best. To avoid having potential customers grow impatient and click out of your site, you will want to maximize your page speed. Do this by minimizing the amount of code you use, making use of browser caching, and avoiding redirects.

Research Mobile Keywords

For a variety of reasons, the high-traffic keywords for desktop traffic aren’t always the same as the high-traffic keywords for mobile traffic. For local businesses, queries that end in phrases such as “near me” or “nearby” are especially important to incorporate in your SEO and can lead to a lot of web (and physical) traffic. Research other mobile keywords as well, and be sure to integrate them into your content creation strategy.

Don’t use Flash

Many mobile devices don’t support the Flash plugin, which means instead of accessing some of your site’s best features your visitors will be left staring at a dull gray box. If you want to add special effects to your site, use HTML5 instead. Then they will show up nicely on desktops and smartphones alike.

Don’t Neglect Your Core SEO

Mobile SEO and desktop SEO both have one thing in common–core SEO. While mobile-friendly content will be ranked higher in mobile searches, you still need to have your core ranking optimized in order to show up in search results. Core SEO involves indexing your site, focusing on maintaining relevance and authority, and essentially following every other non-mobile-specific SEO tactic and strategy that you can find.

Optimize Your Site for Local Mobile Searches

This is something we’ve touched on already in talking about choosing mobile keywords, but there are a number of ways to optimize your site for local mobile searches. Along with including the right keywords, you will also want to be sure and include your city and state’s name in your website’s metadata as well as include your city and state name in as many other high-importance locations as possible such as headings, titles, your URL and your meta description. Doing this will lend your site a lot of relevance when mobile users search for things such as “restaurants near me” or “florists in X City”. With mobile traffic steadily increasing and people relying on their mobile devices to navigate new areas and find new destinations, it’s now more important than ever to optimize your small business’s website for mobile searches. By following the tactics outlined above you will help your site’s mobile search rankings. Reputations.biz helps local businesses reach their goals by building a better and stronger online presence. We do that via reputation marketing, local listings, social marketing, brand analytics and SEO tools/services that make it easier for customers to find and trust your business in local search. Call us today to see what we can do for your business.