Jacob Maslow Mobile SEO

WHY YOUR SITE MUST WORK WELL
ON MOBILE

2
Over the past few years, mobile device usage has increased exponentially,
and many sites are now receiving the bulk of their traffic from mobile
users. Practices’ websites are also receiving an increasing percentage
of visitors from cell phones and tablets, with many seeing 50% or more of
their traffic coming from mobile.
mobile
is everywhere
optimizing for mobile
50%
of Practice’s traffic
is now coming
from mobile
+
EYECAREPRO.NET

optimizing for mobileEYECAREPRO.NET
3
With such a high percentage of mobile
users, it’s becoming increasingly important
for practices to ensure that their site is
mobile-friendly. Mobile optimization can help
you accomplish this goal. Simply put, mobile
optimization ensures that your site looks and
behaves optimally when viewed on a mobile
device. Now, more than ever before, mobile
optimization is integral to your site’s success.
How is optimization achieved?
We’ll cover the basics in this extensive guide,
so you can implement these techniques
today and ensure that your practice’s
website is mobile-friendly.
THE PERCENTAGE OF USERS HAS
GROWN exponentially

4
Google’s Algorithm
A Mobile-Friendly Tool
As of April 2015, Google has made mobile friendliness
part of their algorithm, which determines website
rankings and visibility in relevant searches. When someone
performs a search on a mobile device, Google is now
displaying mobile-friendly results more often, and labeling
these results as “mobile-friendly”. Websites can only re-
ceive this label if they meet Google’s criteria.
How can you know if your website meets Google
criteria? Google offers a handy, free tool to check the
mobile-friendliness of your homepage and other pages on
your website. Please note that each page will need to be
checked separately. For best results, test your home page
and a few additional pages as well.
Google’s free mobile-friendly test tool
can be accessed here.
Using this free tool to determine
whether or not your site is mo-
bile-friendly should be the first
step in the optimization process.
Next, you’ll need to optimize your
site’s internal coding and design to
create a pleasurable mobile-viewing
experience.

5
Optimizing Your
Site’s Internal Coding
It’s important for Google and
other search engines to know
what is happening with your site.
If you have coding to make the
site display in a mobile-friendly
format, make sure the coding is
fully compliant with search engine
guidelines. This will ensure that
search engines can crawl and index
your site easily. It’s also a good
idea to review your robots.txt files
to ensure that nothing important is
being blocked.
All of your pages should be mobile
friendly — not just your homepage.
If some pages aren’t mobile friendly,
it will not affect the SEO for the rest
of your site, but those un-optimized
pages are unlikely to show up on
mobile search results.
It’s also important to refrain from
using Flash or other software that
mobile devices often cannot display.

EYECAREPRO.NET
6
optimizing for mobile
Achieving A
Mobile-Friendly Design
Web designers and developers are
now ensuring that their designs
are mobile-friendly, or responsive.
A responsive design simply means
that the layout of your site will auto-
matically adjust to the user’s screen
size for an optimal viewing expe-
rience. Even if your website has a
mobile-friendly design, there are
several design points that you need
to address during the optimization
process.
EYECAREPRO.NET
Here are several of the most important
pitfalls to watch out for:
— Make sure that the text isn’t too small.
— Links should be large enough to click within a
mobile screen. Touchscreens are navigated with
fingers, so links should be sized appropriately
and should not be in the way of the scroll or
navigation buttons.
— Formatting is correct. Users should not have to
scroll sideways to read the page.

7
Some things
to consider
All of these are essential for a good user experience on
a mobile device and the primary mobile-friendly factors
Google considers. When optimizing your site’s design,
there are two other factors that you need to keep in mind:
page speed and pop-ups.

8
Page speed is a much bigger issue for mobile users
than desktop users. Speed issues can be addressed
through image optimization and cleaning up your
mobile coding.
Ensure that all images are properly optimized and
formatted for a mobile screen and slower mobile net-
works. Also, ensure that your mobile code is as clean
and compact as possible. You may also want to use
browser caching and reduce redirects. Many hosting
providers offer caching.
Anything you can do to speed up page load speed will
help conversions and keep mobile users happy.
Page Speed

9
Pop-Ups
In addition to making your mobile
site speedier, it’s also extremely
important to avoid using pop-ups
on the mobile version of your site.
Mobile users will find it especially
frustrating to close pop-ups on a
small screen.
Optimizing your website’s internal
coding and design will ensure that
users can easily navigate their way
through your site. Once you’ve
worked on these two key areas,
there are two other important things
to work on: implementing rich
snippets and understanding local
search results.
facebook adsEYECAREPRO.NET

10
Using Rich Snippets to
Entice Clicks
Rich Snippets stand out even more
on mobile than desktop due to
limited screenspace, but they also
help Google better understand your
site’s content. When implemented
properly, they can help improve
your mobile rankings.
Rich snippets are a way of tagging
your location information (such
as your business name, address
and phone number), and they can
also be used for reviews, recipes,
products, software applications or
events.
When implementing rich snippets
into your practice’s website, your
location info will often be high-
lighted within Google’s results.
EYECAREPRO.NET
As you can see, rich snippets make results more
enticing, and will attract more clicks from
users. They also include important information
that your visitors are looking for.

11
Local Search Results
are important on Mobile Devices
Google’s local search results are quite
different on mobile than desktop
searches. Google will display a “pack”
of local practices in both desktop and
mobile searches. However, on mobile,
Google provides: a link to allow the
user to click-to-call directly from their
mobile phone, and a second icon for
the user to click for directions. Local
searches are usually transaction-based,
and these links allow users to immedi-
ately call or drive to the business they
are interested in.
Mobile searchers are often more
inclined to convert as they usually
have a more immediate need. If you
were looking for a refrigerator or car,
you would spend some time on an
iPad or desktop to read up on the
various brands. But if you need a
dentist, pediatrician, optometrist or
locksmith immediately, you will grab
your smartphone and will be more
likely to make an immediate decision.

12
Is it worthwhile to optimize if my site looks OK for
mobile right now?
Yes, mobile is not a trend anymore. Most people are now making purchases
and connecting with local practices through their mobile devices. Mobile
optimization not a way to prepare for the future — the future is here now.
Choosing not to fully-optimize your site can cause you to lose business
to competitors that are already fully-optimized.
determine your
10 Frequently Asked Questions
1

13
Should I have a dedicated site, or should I simply optimize my
current site with responsive programming?
You have two choices, and both
are valid. You can have one site for
all customers regardless of device
or if they are on desktop. Your site
can be made responsive to auto-
matically detect the screen size and
display correctly for the screen.
A responsive site will not require
sideways scrolling to read, but care
must be taken to ensure that links
and text are not too small.
Otherwise, your responsive site will
not be considered mobile-friendly.
Do not make the mistake of as-
suming that all responsive sites
are automatically mobile-friendly.
The other choice is a separate
site, such as example.com/m
or m.example.com. The M stands
for Mobile.
2

14
Can I optimize my site for
mobile all by myself or using
internal resources?
Most small companies lack staff to
handle this. It’s hard for a local busi-
ness owner to justify having internal re-
sources for programming and design,
so in-house usually isn’t an option.
If you have the time and experience
to manage freelancers, that might be
an option, but most small or medium
businesses will hire a company to
simply do the job for them.
3 4 How can I get a mobile
friendly website for my opto-
metric practice?
There are options available for most
budgets. EyeCarePro has a basic
website and mobile friendly design for
a very small cost. Wordpress, GoDad-
dy and SquareSpace are also good
options, but none of those are indus-
try-specific.

15
Download a Google Planner
Click here to Stay Organized
Need help with this?
Our experts are happy to help, click here!
Want More e-books like this?
Talk to someone who understands how confusing this can be.
We are Here
TO HELP YOU!

16
Should I hire a contractor?
Hiring a web designer is an option. Pricing varies
greatly from city to city. Most will charge an hourly
fee as there is some back-and-forth between
you and the designer until you are satisfied with
the results. If you do hire a contractor, expect to
pay a bit more and leave some budget for last
minute changes that can increase the cost. It’s
often better to hire locally and check references.
The best option would be to use someone who is
well-regarded within your industry and familiar with
what you do. Marketing legal services or plumbing
is a lot different than optometry.
5

17
What features need to be present?
You need to make conversions easy. If your goal is an
appointment, scheduling an appointment should be
present. A phone number should also be prominent.
Click-to-call functionality is a nice feature (necessary
for mobile) to make it easy for customers to call.
Anyone checking out your business via mobile has a
phone (or tablet) in their hand.
A practice should list their hours and have a map
or link to make it easy for customers to get driving
directions.
6
call directly with a tap
of the screen

18
7 Do you need to integrate social media?
Integrating social media into your
marketing is essential — it’s essen-
tially free advertising. Fashion items
are visual, so designer eyeframes
can fit in well on social channels as
people enjoy looking at, liking and
sharing an attractive image.
It’s important not to overwhelm
users (with too many options/
information etc). You should choose
a few social platforms. Do not post
in a dozen different platforms and
have a dozen links on your pages
to avoid spreading yourself too thin
and wasting time on platforms that
do not have much engagement.
This is especially true on your
mobile site as the mobile screen
is limited. Instead, show the most
important social networks that you
have a presence on.

19
How do I test my site before I’m ready to
make it live?
Taking your site for a test drive will ensure that your website is
easy to read and use on a mobile device. It’s also a good
opportunity to find links that do not work or other errors
on your site by trying to click on everything manually. It’s
important to have more than one set of eyeballs checking
the user experience on your site. Try to check on multiple
devices — not just the one you use. Some users even go
to Best Buy and look at their site on all the display phones,
so they can take advantage of a free hands-on testing lab.
8

20
What’s the best way to measure success?
At EyeCarePro, we rely on Google
Analytics. It is free and easy to use.
Implementation is quick, and it’s
easy to check the installation.

You can find out what devices
people are using on your site, which
pages they are landing on, how they
are interacting with your site, and
whether they are bouncing (leaving
your site without spending any time
on it). A customer who leaves your
site too soon may be going to a
competitor’s site.
9

21
What mistakes do people often make?
One mistake is not properly targeting the user. An Android user
shouldn’t be sent to your full-screen site as your regular site was designed
to be viewed on a large screen. An iPad user may not like the limited
functionality of a mobile site as the iPad screen is several times larger
than a mobile screen, and iPads are often used at home with a WiFi
connection.

Trying to push people to download an app or fill out long forms can
frustrate users. User experience is important; images should be optimized
for mobile’s slower speed and smaller screen, links shouldn’t be crowded,
and text should be easy to read without the need to scroll sideways. This
will ensure that your site is optimized for Google and mobile users.

Converting your site to mobile will ensure that you’re well-represented
to this important audience. Mobile traffic is increasing constantly and is
often the bulk of a site’s traffic.
10

22
Having a mobile-friendly site is no longer a trend or a
nice feature. It’s a necessity.
conclusion

23
WE KnOW It’s important to KEEP ON TOP OF THINGS!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME.
Download a Google Planner
Click here to Stay Organized
Need help with this?
Our experts are happy to help, click here!
Want More e-books like this?
Talk to someone who understands how confusing this can be.

Jacob Maslow Mobile SEO

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (20)

Jacob Maslow Mobile SEO