Google Mobile SEO Navneet  Kaushal  CEO  PageTraffic  

   

Why  Mobile,  Why  Now?  

John  Shehata  |  @JShehata  

Google’s Mission Has evolved

Organize  the  World’s  Informa5on  

“Our  goal  is  to  put  compu5ng  everywhere”    Sundar  Pincai,  Google  SVP,  July  24th,  2013  

Mobile  Search  has  Exploded  

Mobile  Search  has  Exploded  

Take  a  Look  hFp://www.themobileplaybook.com/  

“36%  of  mobile  web  search  results  vary  from  desktop,  with  23%  showing  pages  from  completely  different  sites”  

Data  provided  by  SearchMetrics  from  their  2014  US  Google  Ranking  Factors  Study  

Mobile  Usage  Over  Takes  Desktop  for  the  First  Time  in  History  

Mobile Usage

“Google  Mobile  Queries  May  Surpass  PC  Search  This  Year”    

           MaF  CuFs          SMX  West,  March  2014  

Mobile Searches

Mobile  Search  Now  Exceeds  Desktop  

More  Google  searches  take  place  on  mobile  devices  than  on  computers  in  10  countries  including  the  US  and  Japan.    

Inside  AdWords  May  2015  

 

Mobile search business Case

SERPs inspired by Mobile-First Design

History  of  Google  and  Mobile  “As  more  people  use  mobile  devices  to  access  the  internet,  our  algorithms  have  to  adapt  to  these  usage  paFerns.  In  the  past,  we’ve  made  updates  to  ensure  a  site  is  configured  properly  and  viewable  on  modern  devices.  We’ve  made  it  easier  for  users  to  find  mobile-­‐friendly  web  pages.”    

Google  Webmaster  Central  Blog  February  26,  2015  

Googlebot  Mobile  

Crawling  Errors  

Changes  in  Mobile  Rankings  

2014  2013  2012  

Mobile  Results  &  Test  Tool  

PageSpeed  Insights  

Indexing  Android  Apps   Mobile  

Usability  

2011   2015  

Usability  Warnings  

Mobile  Search  Queries  Stats  

Warnings    for  Flash  Sites  

Faulty  Redirects  

June  2013  THE  ROLLOUT  BEGINS  

“To  improve  the  search  experience  for  smartphone  users  and  address  their  pain  points,  we  plan  to  roll  out  several  ranking  changes  in  the  near  future  that  address  sites  that  are  misconfigured  for  smartphone  users.”  

Google  Webmaster  Central  June  11,  2013  

 

November  2014  MOBILE  FRIENDLY  LABEL  ADDED  TO  SERPS  

January  2015  WARNINGS  TO  FIX  MOBILE  USABILITY  ISSUES  

February  2015  THE  OFFICIAL  ANNOUNCEMENT  

“Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”  

Google  Webmaster  Central  Blog  February  26,  2015  

Don’t  ignore  the  warning.  “We  wanted  to  give  you  a  date  so  that  you  know  at  least  you  have  unbl  that  bme  to  really  double  check  what’s  happening  with  your  website  and  make  sure  that  if  you  have  a  mobile  website  already  that  it  is  being  recognized.”    

John  Mueller,  Google  Webmaster  Trends  Analyst  February  26,  2015  

When  exactly?  

“We  are  expecbng  it  (the  mobile  friendly  algorithm)  to  roll  out  on  April  21st,  we  don’t  have  a  set  bme  period  because  it  is  going  to  take  a  couple  of  days  to  roll  out.  Maybe  even  a  week  or  so.  

 From  an  official  Google  Hangout  Session  

March  24,  2015  

How  has  the  update  worked?  

“We’re  going  to  try  to  boost  the  mobile  friendly  sites  in  search  and  with  that  if  we  boost  one  set  of  sites  then  of  course  the  other  set  of  sites  drops  down.”    

John  Mueller,  Google  February  26,  2015  

It’s  an  All  or  Nothing  Algorithm  “You  either  have  a  mobile  friendly  page  or  not.  It  is  based  on  the  criteria  we  menboned  earlier,  which  are  small  font  sizes,  your  tap  targets/links  to  your  buFons  are  too  close  together,  readable  content  and  your  viewpoint.  So  if  you  have  all  of  those  and  your  site  is  mobile  friendly  then  you  benefit  from  the  ranking  change.”    

From  an  official  Google  Hangout  Session  March  24,  2015  

Non-­‐Mobile-­‐Friendly  Share  of  SERPs  Decreases  21%  with  April  21  Mobile  Algorithm  Change    

Mobile Search v Desktop Search • Mobile search queries mimic desktop • Searchers use the same number of keywords,

on average, per query •  2.45 v 2.56 on mobile and 2.64 on PDA

• Mobile users perform fewer searches per session, click through less and are more likely to go to the 2nd search results page

•  2.0 queries per session on mobile •  1.7 clicks per query on mobile •  10.4% go to 2nd page

Source: Google – Deciphering Trends in Mobile Search, M. Kamvar & S. Baluja

Mobile Search Results • Shorter headlines & snippets • Only 2-3 results above the fold • Sponsored links at the bottom • Layout of search results varies on search

engines • Universal search used on all except Ask.com

mobile

Changing Face of Mobile Search Text Local & Image Audio Video

   

Mobile:  Site  Technical  Guidelines  

John  Shehata  |  @JShehata  

Good Practices to Maximize your Mobile SEO

All  of  them  have  Pros,  Cons  &  SEO  Best  Pracbces  

Select  the  Most  Suitable  for  You  

Validate  with  the  previously  idenbfied  informabon,    your  content  needs  &  technical  capacity.  

Select  the  Most  Suitable  for  You  

Responsive   Separate  URLs   Dynamic  Serving  •  ALL  devices  •  1  URL  •  Same  Content/HTML  •  Use  CSS  to  render  pages  

•  Separate  Mobile  &  Desktop  URLs                      example.com/m/                      m.example.com  •  Different  HTML  

•  All  devices    •  1  URL  •  different  HTML  (and  CSS)  

depending  on  user  agent  (desktop  or  mobile  device)  

Pros  

•  1  URL  •  Easier  to  maintain  •  Link  Consolidabon  •  No  Redirects  >  Reduce  Loading  

Time  •  Recommended  By  Google  (saves  

resources,  pages  crawled  once)  

•  BeFer  Mobile  Experience  •  Faster  •  Dedicated  Mobile  Content  •  Easier  Implementabon  

•  1  URL  •  Link  Consolidabon  •  Capacity  for  different  mobile  

content  

Cons  

•  Slower  •  All  content  is  downloaded  

whether  it  is  used  or  not.  This  can  be  problemabc  for  image  intensive  websites  

•  Same  Mobile/Desktop  Content  

•  Link  Equity  Dilubon  •  Higher  Cost  to  maintain  •  Crawled  Mulbple  Times  with  

different  user  agents  

•  Slower    •  Higher  Cost  to  maintain  •  Old  Redirect  Lists  •  Complex  technical  

implementabon  •  Crawled  Mulbple  Times    

SEO  

•  Check  Google  Webmaster  Tools  Crawl  Errors  for  Redirect  &  404  Errors  

•  Check  Page  Load  Time  for  Mobile  and  Desktop  

•  Allow  Search  Engines  to  crawl  all  assets  (CSS,  Images,  JS)  

•  Redirect  Mobile  Users  and  Bots  to  the  mobile  site  

•  Test  Desktop  Site  for  Redirects  &  404  Errors  

•  Add    Rel=Alternate  to  desktop  and  rel=Canonical  to  mobile  site    

•  XML  Mobile  Sitemaps  

•  Use  user-­‐agent  vary  header  to  help  search  bots  to  find  your  mobile  content  

•  Test  for  Vary:  User-­‐Agent  HTTP  Header  

Source:  John  Shehata,  ExecuEve  Director  of  Search  at  ABC  News  

Just  because  Google  strongly  recommends  using  responsive  design  doesn’t  mean  you  should  automaEcally  choose  responsive  

design  for  your  site  

Use  your  Google  Webmaster  Tools  

Go  to  Traffic  >  Search  Analybcs  >  Device  >  Mobile  

Verify  Queries  &  Pages  Mobile  Search  Visibility  

Verify  Queries  &  Pages  Mobile  Search  Visibility  

Compare  your    (Top  Queries  &  Top  Pages)  from    (Mobile  &  Web)  search  results.    

Go  to  Crawl>  Crawl  Errors  >  Mobile  

Go  to  Crawl>  Fetch  as  Google  >  Mobile  

Verify  how  Googlebot  Mobile  Access  to  your  Pages  

hFps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-­‐friendly/  

Crawl  your  site  using  GoogleBot’s  mobile  User  Agent  

If  you  need  more  compubng  power,  consider  using  a  cloud-­‐based  crawler  such  as  DeepCrawl  

If  you  are  using  separate  URLs  for  your  desktop  and  mobile  sites,  make  sure  you  have  the  correct  rel=“alternate”  annotabon  on  the  desktop  site.  This  will  ensure  that  the  mobile  version  of  the  site  appears  in  mobile  search  

Non-­‐mobile  friendly  URL  in  mobile  search.  Desktop  homepage  is  missing  the  rel=“alternate”  tag  

According  to  research  from  BrightEdge:  

According  to  BrightEdge,  72%  of  sites  with  separate  mobile  URLs  are  misconfigured,  with  a  missing  rel=“alternate”  tag  being  the  most  common  error    

Source:  BrightEdge  

Tag Mobile Pages

Tag  Pages  with  Canonical  Markup  

What Google says…•  Canonical markup helps make content visible to bots

and searchers•  If you have an “m.” mobile site:

•  Each desktop page should contain a "rel=alternate" link meta tag that points to the mobile URL

•  Each mobile page should contain a "rel=canonical" meta tag that points to the desktop URL

•  Alternatively add notation to Sitemaps file•  Consider Javascript redirects that match on link value

Canonical  Link  Markup:  Just  Do  It  

Some Best Practices •  Follow  the  "m"  convenbon  (m.novarelibrary.com  OR  lifeonterra.com/m/)  

 •  Keep  categories  (directories)  short.  Remember  that  you  are  creabng  a  page  

that  people  touch  without  much  typing      

•  Limit  image  and  markup  sizes    

•  Limit  HTML  pages  to  25KB  to  allow  for  caching    

•  "Minify"  your  scripts  and  CSS  (JSLint,  CleanCSS)    

•  Link  to  Full  Site    

•  Sniff  for  User  Agent  –  Detecbon  (allow  the  user  to  decide  where  to  go)    

•  One  Column  Layout  with  some  whitespace      

•  Mobile  refers  to  the  user!  

•  SEPARATE URLS?  •  On the desktop page, add the link rel=”alternate” tag pointing to

the corresponding mobile URL. This helps Googlebot discover the location of your site’s mobile pages.

•  This tag specifies an alternative URL to the desktop page.

•  <link  rel="alternate"  href="hFp://m.example.com/"  />    

•  On the mobile page, add a rel=”canonical” tag pointing to the corresponding desktop URL. This rel=”canonical” tag on the mobile URL pointing to the desktop page is required as it signals the relationship between the two URLs

Ø <link  rel=“canonical”  href=hFp://www.example.com/”  />  

*maintain a 1-to-1 ratio between the mobile page and the corresponding desktop page

•  Avoid  plugins  (flash,  Silverlight,  Java,  etc.)  

•  Configure  the  viewport  <meta  name=viewport  content="width=device-­‐width,  inibal-­‐scale=1">  

•  Size  content  to  viewport  

•  Use  legible  font  sizes  

•  Size  tap  targets  appropriately  

Optimize User Experience

•  Mulb-­‐Device  Design:    hFps://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/layouts/    

•  25  Principles  of  Mobile  Site  Design  hFps://www.google.com/think/mulbscreen/whitepaper-­‐sitedesign.html  

•  Forms  hFps://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/input/form/  

•  Mobile  e-­‐commerce  Design  hFp://www.kaushik.net/avinash/web-­‐design-­‐user-­‐experience-­‐best-­‐pracbces/    

READ:

Avoid  these  mobile  design  mistakes  Once  you've  chosen  the  soluEon  that  best  suits  your  goals  and  budget,  here  are  some  common  mobile  opEmizaEon  mistakes  to  avoid.  

1.  Do not block JavaScript, CSS or image files 2.  Avoid putting up unplayable content 3.  Set up your redirects properly 4.  Watch out for mobile-only 404s 5.  Don't push users to download your app aggressively 6.  Check for irrelevant cross-links 7.  Make sure your page isn't too slow

Download  checklist  from  hFp://pt.gy/mobileseocheck  

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THANK YOU!

Download  checklist  from  hFp://pt.gy/mobileseocheck