ISEO: MOBILE SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION DONE RIGHTData-driven Mobile SEO for Smartphones

Bryson MeunierDirector, Content SolutionsResolution Media@brysonmeunier+Bryson Meunier

• Differences in smartphone ranking

• Differences in mobile search engagement: “A drop from first to fourth position on mobile phone can mean a CTR drop off of more than 90%.” Google, Winning the Zero Moment of Truth

• Mobile Search Traffic to eclipse desktop search traffic in years, not decades

MOBILE SEARCH OPTIMIZATION CRITICAL

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MANY PATHS TO MOBILE OPTIMIZATION

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One URL

Mobile URL

Mobile Site?

Site that works well

on all devices?

Smartphone optimized?

Feature phone

optimized?

Tablet optimized?

Same Content and Keywords?

Mobile Content and Keywords?

APPARENT DISAGREEMENTS WITHIN GOOGLE

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Matt Cutts recommends mobile URLs and says mobile sites don’t cause canonicalization issues if redirected in Februray 2011

Google Webmaster Team selects responsive design for “maintainability” in May 2012 blog post

Mobile Search Queries

Smartphone Search Results

Mobile Search

Strategies of Top Sites

DATA TO THE RESCUE

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• “Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.”

• Design and Content Guidelines, Google Webmaster Guidelines

• “Anticipating these differences in search behavior and accounting for them while writing your content (using a good mix of keyword phrases) could produce positive results”

• “Designing your site around your visitors' needs while making sure your site is easily accessible to search engines usually produces positive results.”

• Google SEO Starter Guide

KEYWORD AND CONCEPT RESEARCH CRITICAL TO SEO

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GOOGLE QUERIES REVEAL DIFFERENCES IN SEARCH BEHAVIOR

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• Analyzed mobile and desktop volumes for top keywords according to Adwords Keyword Tool and Google Insights for Search

• Mobile Search accounts for 22% of all Google searches on average according to sample

GOOGLE QUERIES REVEAL DIFFERENCES IN SEARCH BEHAVIOR

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• Same Keywords, Different FrequenciesFi

nanc

e • 77% of total search volume for [atm] and 99% of volume from [atm locations] comes from mobile devices D

inin

g an

d N

ight

life • 88% of

searches for [restaurants], 97% of searches for [bars] and 80% of searches for [restaurants near me] come from mobile devices

Inte

rnet

& T

elec

om

• 69% of [apps for android] and 73% of [download ringtones] searches come from mobile devices

DIFFERENT SEARCH BEHAVIOR REQUIRES DIFFERENT CONTENT TO ACHIEVE SEARCHER GOALS QUICKLY

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SOME CATEGORIES NEED DEDICATED MOBILE SITES

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Responsive

Dedicated

• Tested mobile SEO best practices by examining 37 different ranking factors of top three sites appearing for 11 competitive mobile searches across different categories.

• Ranking factors include• Code validation• Mobile usability and page

speed• On-page factors• Engagement data• Site Authority

• Data pulled manually on one day in December 2010, May 2011 and May 2012 (post Skip Redirect/Old Possum)

WHAT CONTENT APPEARS IN SMARTPHONE SEARCH RESULTS?

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Download the white paper at resolutionmedia.com/white-papers/rank-higher-in-google-mobile-search

“Use 100% valid XHTML 1.0 code. […] Many optimizers on the traditional WWW do not consider using valid code as a best practice. Mobile search engines however may have more trouble digesting invalid code.”-Andy Hagans, (circa 2005) MobileSearchMarketing.com (#4 in Google for “mobile SEO”)

TRUE OR FALSE?: VALIDATION IS KEY

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FALSEDownload the white paper at resolutionmedia.com/white-papers/rank-higher-in-google-mobile-search

“MOBILE SEO RULE NUMBER ONE: if you're trying to attract a mobile audience, then you'd better be good at it and you'd better give them an elegant user experience!-DotMobi (circa 2008), Mobithinking.com (#1 in Google for “mobile SEO”)

“Getting from needs to actions lightning fast is especially important on smaller devices like mobile phones, where screen size is limited and context really matters.”Larry Page, Google CEO in 2012 Letter to Investors

TRUE OR FALSE?: MOBILE USABILITY/PAGE SPEED IS HELPFUL

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FALSEDownload the white paper at resolutionmedia.com/white-papers/rank-higher-in-google-mobile-search

“But right now, partly because of the relative lack of competition and partly because as I explained above, the link graph makes less sense for mobile sites and users, links are not needed for (at least some) mobile rankings.-Will Critchlow (circa 2008), SEOMoz.org

TRUE OR FALSE?: LINKBUILDING IS UNNECESSARY

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FALSEDownload the white paper at resolutionmedia.com/white-papers/rank-higher-in-google-mobile-search

“The best way to build your mobile web site for SEO is by using the dotMobi domain”-DotMobi (circa 2008), Mobithinking.com (#1 in Google for “mobile SEO”)

TRUE OR FALSE?: DOTMOBI HELPS

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FALSEDownload the white paper at resolutionmedia.com/white-papers/rank-higher-in-google-mobile-search

“The best Mobile SEO strategy is to not have a mobile SEO strategy.”-Ryan Jones (circa 2011), SearchEngineJournal.com (#3 in Google for “mobile SEO”)

“Having a mobile site is strongly correlated with top three rankings in Google smartphone search”-Bryson Meunier (circa 2012), SearchEngineLand.com

TRUE OR FALSE?: MOBILE SITES HELP RANKING

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TRUEDownload the white paper at resolutionmedia.com/white-papers/rank-higher-in-google-mobile-search

• Looked at mobile SEO redirect strategies of top 100 sites that get most overall organic search traffic

HOW DO TOP SITES APPROACH MOBILE SEO?

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MAJORITY OF TOP SITES HAVE A MOBILE SEO STRATEGY

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Majority of top sites are redirecting smartphone Googlebot after just 5 months

Full study at distilled.net/blog/mobile/how-the-winners-do-mobile-seo-guest-post/

MAJORITY OF TOP SITES USE MOBILE URLS

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More than half of sites redirect to mobile URLs

MOBILE URLS DO NOT RESULT IN LOST ORGANIC TRAFFIC

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1. Understand the differences between what your mobile user expects and what your desktop user expects and build your mobile site accordingly

2. Build a mobile home page at m.domain.com that addresses the mobile user’s goals with link to full site and responsive duplicate pages OR build a mobile first responsive design driven site if goals are same.

3. Do not block your mobile URLs with robots.txt. Use canonical tags for duplicate URLs and redirect smartphone URLs to smartphone Googlebot but make mobile homepage unique to appear for mobile navigational searches (i.e. [brand + “mobile site”])

4. Market your mobile site externally in print and broadcast advertising and online. Links, authority and social shares still matter in mobile.

5. Don’t believe everything you read. Many consultants are applying traditional SEO best practices to mobile, which doesn’t always translate. Trust but verify.

DATA-DRIVEN MOBILE SEO BEST PRACTICES

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For 25 more visit brysonmeunier.com/mobile-seo-best-practices

Bryson MeunierDirector, Content SolutionsResolution Mediabmeunier@resolutionmedia.comhttp://www.brysonmeunier.comhttp://www.resolutionmedia.com@brysonmeunier+Bryson Meunier

THANK YOU!

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