Protect Your Mobile Web Presence

W A S H I N G T O N , D C | A P R I L 2 9 , 2 0 1 5

#RoadToC3
PROTECT YOUR MOBILE WEB
PRESENCE: TIPS FOR THE
PROCRASTINATOR
Gordy Casasco
Search and Social Analyst

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#RoadToC3
PROTECT YOUR MOBILE WEB PRESENCE
Tips for the Procrastinator
• What is the Mobile Update?
• Mobile Tips by Site Type
• 3 Common Issues and How to Fix Them
• Utilizing Searchlight to Boost your Mobile Presence

#RoadToC3
WHAT IS THE MOBILE UPDATE?

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#RoadToC3
• The Announcement
• What is the Purpose?
• What Does This Mean for Sites?
• Testing for Mobile Friendliness
• Observations Since Release
• What Can We Expect Going Forward?

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#RoadToC3
The Announcement

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#RoadToC3
What Does This Mean for Sites?
• This update is Page based rather than
Domain based
• The update should have no effect on
desktop rankings
• Your site does not HAVE to be
responsive to be mobile friendly
• SERP Changes
• Increased focus on local results
• Knowledge graph
• App pack results

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#RoadToC3
Testing for Mobile Friendliness
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

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#RoadToC3
What is the Purpose?
• Provide better Mobile
experience for
searchers
• Follow the Money
• Apps
• Differentiate Mobile
vs. Desktop Search
Experience

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#RoadToC3
Observations Since the Release
• The Verdict? – Relatively Mild…
• Increase of ~2-3% in days following the release for
the percentage of “Mobile Friendly” results on page
one in Moz study
• Site names and breadcrumbs in search results
Source: http://moz.com/blog/day-after-mobilegeddon

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#RoadToC3
What Can We Expect Going Forward?
• A Slow and Long Roll Out
• Changes in Mobile SERP’s
beyond ranking
• Breadcrumb/Sitename
• “App Pack” Results
• Expansion of answer results
• Expansion of Local results
• Good news for procrastinators!
• Google has indicated that
they will reprocess pages
quickly

#RoadToC3
MOBILE TIPS BY SITE TYPE

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#RoadToC3
• Dedicated Mobile Sites
– Subdomain (m.example.com)
– Root Domain (example.com/mobile)
• Responsive Design
• Dynamic Serving

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#RoadToC3
Dedicated Mobile Sites
• Specifically Test your “m.” and
“/mobile/” URL’s
• Use rel=alternate tags for
desktop pages
• Use canonical Tags on mobile
pages that correspond to the
desktop rel=alternate page
• Add rel=alternate tags to your
xml sitemap as well
• Offer users the option to
override mobile re-direction
• Check your robots.txt!
Source: bit.ly/mobile-c3

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#RoadToC3
Responsive Design
• Check WMT Crawl Errors for 404’s
and 500’s
• Check your robots.txt and ensure
that js, css and images are
crawlable
• Check Page Speed on Mobile and
Desktop
• https://developers.google.com
/speed/pagespeed/insights/
• Note: Responsive design is
recommended by Google

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#RoadToC3
Dynamic Serving
• Use Vary HTTP Header
• Hint to search engines and mobile
bots to crawl and discover both
mobile and desktop content
• Make sure the robots.txt is not blocking
content
• This is most important on dynamic
serving sites because the html and
css will likely be different depending
on user-agent
• Check Page Speed

#RoadToC3
3 COMMON ISSUES AND
HOW TO FIX THEM

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#RoadToC3
• Robots.txt Blocking JS, CSS, and Image Files
• Faulty Re-Directs
• Mobile Only 404’s
3 COMMON ISSUES AND HOW TO FIX THEM

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#RoadToC3
Robots.txt Blocking JS, CSS, and Image Files
• This seemed to be the most common
issue with sites that I work with.
• Robots.txt was blocking certain js,
css, and image extensions
• Direct correlation to disallow
statements and “not mobile-friendly”
designation
• FIX
• Simplify your robots.txt
• Remove unnecessary disallow
statements
• Create separate disallow
statements for user-agent:
googlebot

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#RoadToC3
Faulty Re-Directs
• If you have a dedicated mobile site,
ensuring that proper re-directs are set up
is extremely important.
• Errors and Faulty Re-Directs can slow
down your site and create a negative
search experience.
• FIX
• Monitor Faulty Re-Directs in Google
Webmaster tools
• Fix Broken Links and implement 301
Redirects
• If a page on your site doesn’t have a
smartphone equivalent, keep users
on the desktop page, rather than
redirecting them to the smartphone
site’s homepage.

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#RoadToC3
Mobile Only 404’s
• Some sites serve content to
desktop users accessing a URL
but show an error page to
mobile users.
• FIX
• Use Google Webmaster
tools or Moz Crawl to find
Mobile Only 404’s
• Ensure proper 301 re-directs
are implemented
• Make sure that the mobile
page itself is not an error
page

#RoadToC3
UTILIZING SEARCHLIGHT TO BOOST
YOUR MOBILE PRESENCE

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#RoadToC3
• Differences in Desktop and Mobile Search Behavior
• Finding Mobile Specific Keywords
• Utilizing the Visibility Explorer
UTILIZING SEARCHLIGHT TO BOOST YOUR
MOBILE PRESENCE

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#RoadToC3
MOBILE PRESENCE
Differences in Desktop and Mobile Search Behavior
• Localized Search Results
• Difference between
desktop and mobile results
• Maps Results
• Immediate answers vs.
research
• Interactive Results/Knowledge
Graph
• Ex. Weather
• Ex. Sports scores
• Autocomplete

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#RoadToC3
MOBILE PRESENCE
Finding Mobile Specific Keywords
• Google search interest in "near me" has
increased 34X since 2011 and nearly
doubled since last year.
• The vast majority come from mobile-
80% in Q4 2014.2
• The search interest for terms that include
“near me”, “closest”, and “nearby” have
exploded in the last few years.
Source:
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/features/
i-want-to-go-micro-moments.html

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#RoadToC3
MOBILE PRESENCE
Utilizing the Visibility Explorer
Tips:
• Click “Unmanaged”
• Sort by Search Volume

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#RoadToC3
MOBILE PRESENCE
Utilizing the Visibility Explorer
Tips:
• Search for “near”, “nearby”,
or “closest”
• Sort by Search Volume

GORDY CASASCO
Search and Social Analyst, Oracle
gordy.casasco@oracle.com
pgcasasco@gmail.com
(202) 294-2813
IG: pgcasasco
gordycasasco.com

Protect Your Mobile Web Presence

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