Winning in a  Mobile Search World #LearnInbound

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @orainti
Winning in a  
Mobile Search World

Since a few years ago, in a
galaxy not so far away….

Smartphones have become  
our primary digital device

We might be a bit addicted

With a few exceptions

Mobile phones are a primal need now

Like, very very primal
Would you be willing to give up your Mobile phone?

For good & bad, our behaviour 
has largely changed with them

Since 2014 Smartphones have driven  
the growth of digital time spent

20% of ecommerce transactions  
are performed from Mobile devices

http://searchengineland.com/report-nearly-60-percent-searches-now-mobile-devices-255025
Search is also mostly  
mobile driven now

As a consequence, Google is moving  
towards a Mobile First Index
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html

Ranking signals will come from your 
mobile Website, not Desktop one
http://searchengineland.com/faq-google-mobile-first-index-262751

It’s already being tested, and  
likely to happen next year
http://searchengineland.com/googles-mobile-first-index-likely-not-coming-2018-earliest-277074

At some point Google will  
switch to a Mobile-Only Index
http://searchengineland.com/faq-google-mobile-first-index-262751

Sadly, many mobile sites are not ready…  
because they’re not really optimised
AERLINGUS PROPERTY.IE

Which makes people to leave
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/three-ways-mobile-is-changing-canadians-expectations.html

Negatively inﬂuencing mobile conversions
http://www.monetate.com/blog/ecommerce-benchmarks-q4-2016

Causing a non-trivial  
mobile-desktop conversion gap

It’s time to learn some Jedi  
Mobile SEO Skills

I’m Aleyda Solis

I help companies to connect with them

Some of them brands you likely know

Today, I’ll help you too

A correctly
conﬁgured and
accessible Mobile
Website you must
have

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @orainti#winningmobile at #searchstarsSE by @aleyda from @orainti
THAT WAS YODA ACCENT, DON’T BLAME ME

Responsive Web Dynamic Serving Independent Mobile Web
There are 3 main Mobile  
Web Conﬁgurations

Responsive Web Design, that uses CSS 
Media Queries to reformat the same HTML

Dynamic Serving, showing different HTMLs
through the same URL based on user-agent
Desktop Mobile

Independent Mobile Site, that serves  
different HTMLs through different URLs
Desktop Mobile

Each of them have Pros & Cons
https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/
Responsive Web Dynamic Serving Independent Mobile Web
Same HTML for Mobile &
Desktop = Less
personalisation & speed
restrictions
Different HTML for Mobile &
Desktop through the same URL =
More difficult to correctly serve
and maintain
Different HTML for Mobile & Desktop
through different URLs = More difficult to
configure, serve, crawl and maintain

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintihttps://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/
But they are all recognised by Google

As long as they comply with  
certain minimal conﬁgurations
https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/
Responsive Web
Don’t block images, css & js
resources.
Include the Vary: User-Agent  
HTTP header
Identify & serve the relevant Web
version to the right user agent
Implement Rel alternate & canonical Tags
between mobile & desktop URLs.  
 
Implement 301-redirects between mobile &
desktop to refer the user agent to the
relevant Web version
Dynamic Serving Independent Mobile Web

Google’s requirements won’t likely  
change with the Mobile First Index too

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintihttps://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-migration-24024.html
But if you’re looking to move from an
independent to a responsive site, do it now

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintihttps://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
It’s then critical to verify if your site  
pages pass the Google Mobile validation
MOBILE WEB
CONFIGURATION
ISSUE
MOBILE WEB
AVAILABILITY
ISSUE

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintiGoogle Analytics
Use Analytics to identify the top mobile
devices already being used by your visitors

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintibit.ly/chromedevicemode
Emulate them using Chrome to check how  
your most important pages are shown
RIGHT CLICK + INSPECT

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintiGoogle Search Console
See if they trigger Mobile Usability  
errors in the Search Console

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintiSitebulb
You can also use SEO crawlers to verify  
all of your mobile Website URLs easily

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintiDeepcrawl
As well as checking the relevant mobile Web
conﬁguration for all your pages

Your content
must also be
ﬁndable in your
Mobile Website

>
It’s usual to ﬁnd Mobile sites showing less
content than the desktop versions

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintihttp://searchengineland.com/faq-google-mobile-first-index-262751
But with a Mobile First index you should bring
all your content & structured data

It’s ok to use expandable content
by using CSS in this case

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintihttps://www.seroundtable.com/google-prepare-for-mobile-first-index-24052.html
But critical to make sure your mobile  
Web content is accessible and indexable

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintihttps://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easily-access-content-on.html
This is why bigger intrusive Mobile app
pop-ups & interstitials are penalised

Start by not doing this

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintihttps://www.sistrix.com/blog/pinterst-com-hit-googles-interstitials-update/
Or this might happen :(
GOOGLE POP-UP UPDATE RELEASE
BYE MOBILE 
VISBILITY

To refer to apps, is better to
use app banners instead

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintiScreaming Frog
Emulate the Googlebot for Smartphones 
and crawl your site w/ JS rendering

Verify if the mobile crawler sees the same  
than the desktop and the user
WHY IS THE MOBILE SUBDOMAIN BLOCKED?

Are there errors, non-relevant redirects,
blocked or no-indexed URLs
WHY ARE THESE
RESOURCES
RETURNING ERRORS?
HOW IS THE
MOBILE CONTENT
RENDERED?

Do the same with every content element,
from titles to main text
ARE THE TITLES
SPECIFICALLY RELEVANT
TO EVERY PAGE?

Do a parity mobile-desktop SEO audit
to compare the crawler behaviour
https://moz.com/blog/mobile-parity-audits

Your Mobile
Website
faaaaaast
should be

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintihttps://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/experience-design/mobile-page-speed-load-time/
Your site speed is critical to your  
Mobile users experience & conversions

As well as their well-being

Your users have a minimum
expectation of 2 seconds

The average is shockingly higher though
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/data-measurement/mobile-page-speed-new-industry-benchmarks/

And consequences are devastating

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintihttp://www.thesempost.com/google-mobile-first-index-page-speed-ranking/
Mobile speed is only getting more important  
with Google’s mobile ﬁrst index too

How long does the The Independent  
mobile home page takes to load?

7 Seconds
https://testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com/

… what about the Argos Ireland home page?

10 Seconds

… and the lottery.ie home page?

18 Seconds

Sigh. What about your own site?

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @orainti#mobileﬁrstseo at #TuringFest by @aleyda from @orainti
Use Analytics to see which of your most
important mobile pages take longer to load
Google Analytics

Complement this data with the  
one of your own Mobile crawls

With Sitebulb you will get the pages and
resources affected, along recommendations

Verify this for your top pages with the  
Chrome Lighthouse integration

Obtaining directly the resources  
that need to be optimised too

The solution is to implement WPO principles  
to make your Mobile site to load fast
https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/rules

But big sites have restrictive legacy systems  
& small ones little resources to improve it

That’s why Google launched AMP two years ago
http://searchengineland.com/amp-top-stories-now-live-243314

It uses a “simpliﬁed” HTML version with optimised
resources & cache to serve it faster

AMP should be published “parallely”  
to your current (slower) Web pages
https://www.rte.ie/lifestyle/living/2017/1019/913657-plastic-
surgery-in-ireland-who-is-doing-what-whats-wrong/ 
game-of-thrones-gendry-olympian-running-meme-2017-8
https://www.rte.ie/amp/913657/

It’s certainly much faster
https://www.rte.ie/lifestyle/living/2017/1019/913657-plastic-
surgery-in-ireland-who-is-doing-what-whats-wrong/ 
game-of-thrones-gendry-olympian-running-meme-2017-8
https://www.rte.ie/amp/913657/

Although AMP usage is not  
a ranking factor (at least yet)

And Google won’t index AMP in a Mobile First Index
(unless is used as the canonical version)

It has been made a requirement to  
be included in the News Carrousels

As well as shown in organic results
AMP article rich results 
Can be free-standing in the
results page, or embedded in
a carousel of similar result
types. All AMP article rich
results are also rich results.
AMP non-rich results 
A basic, non-graphical
search result pointing to the
AMP page.

All this has skyrocketed its visibility
https://www.rankranger.com/amp-on-google-serp

As well as the extra trafﬁc  
sites can get from using it
AMP Rich Results
AMP Non-Rich Results
Non-AMP Results
More Mobile organic
visibility and traffic from
AMP than non-AMP
results

Which has incentivised its adoption,  
especially among big media oriented sites
Sistrix

However, AMP is not a  
replacement of your Mobile site

Even Google representatives agree that is not  
a “bullet-proof” solution for all sites
“It wouldn’t be
reasonable for us to
expect that a group of
limited functionalities
replace all what you can
do at the moment in the
mobile environment…
AMP its meant to serve in
certain use cases”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtOjUwGnrVY

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @orainti#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @orainti
AMP is a fast “add-on” to
your existing (but slow)
mobile Web, don’t use it as
a silver bullet solution or a
replacement to your mobile
site but as a resource

Avoid this type of experience

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @orainti#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @orainti
So for those of you who can’t
improve your own mobile speed or
are media sites that could proﬁt
from the extra visibility, here’s how
to make the most out of AMP…

Before starting with AMP, verify that your mobile
Web functionality can be replicated by using it
https://www.ampproject.org/docs/reference

Check with your development team if you  
have the capacity and ﬂexibility to use it
https://ampbyexample.com/

The goal is to keep the UI and functionality
consistent with your AMP version
ORIGINAL MOBILE PAGE AMP URL VERSION
=

Avoiding this
<>

There are also free Wordpress plugins  
that highly facilitate the implementation

You can also use freemium and paid  
WP plugins like AMP for WP and weeblrAMP

They will allow you to personalise more, but  
you’ll likely need further development support

They’re not an “out of the box” solution  
and will still need design personalisation

There’s also an inconsistent mobile user experience  
when accessing to AMP pages from SERPs

Which ends-up causing users to link and share  
the non-canonical Google AMP Viewer URLs

Start avoiding these by making sure to only  
link internally to your canonical URLs from AMP

Remember to also redirect based on the user agent
to not show non-mobile visitors your AMP URLs
DON’T DO THIS DO THIS

Avoid AMP implementation errors,  
suffered by +70% of top publishers using it
https://www.semrush.com/blog/amp-mistakes-semrush-study/

Most common AMP mistakes are related to usage  
of disallowed and non-supported attributes & tags

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintihttps://sitebulb.com/
Crawl all of your site pages to validate AMP
implementation issues before and after launching

#winningmobile at #learninbound by @aleyda from @oraintideepcrawl.com
SEO crawlers like Sitebulb, Deepcrawl & SEMrush 
already include AMP conﬁguration problems

You’ll be able to obtain and ﬁx quickly those that
would generate critical issues in the Search Console

Once you launch though, monitor the  
potential still existing errors over time
SIGH

Prioritise to ﬁx critical issues ﬁrst, which will  
be the ones preventing to be shown in SERPs
THIS

Focus on identifying how the non-supported code  
is included to establish a pattern and remove it
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/amp-validator/nmoffdblmcmgeicmolmhobpoocbbmknc

Follow-up also with your AMP Queries & pages
attracting visibility via the Google Search Console

Use SEOmonitor to track AMP for your targeted
(ranked or unranked) keywords

You can also spot AMP opportunities vs. your
competitors with SEMrush rank tracking

As well as verify the queries for which AMP
results are shown to prioritise your content
sistrix.com

These are the
highlights to maximise
your results when
implementing AMP

There’s more though!  
Here’s a complete presentation about it
https://www.slideshare.net/aleydasolis/amp-do-or-die-smxeast-81162535

But time is (sadly) almost up!

There are more Mobile First questions to
address to maximise your visibility
https://www.slideshare.net/aleydasolis/setting-amp-for-success-at-brightonseo
What’s your
Mobile
Audience
Search
Behavior?
What’s your
site Mobile
Search
Visibility &
Traffic
Performance
?
What’s your
competition
Mobile Web
Search
Visibility?
Does your
site have a
Mobile Web
Version?
How Mobile
Search Crawlers
access to your
site?
What’s your
Site Mobile
speed?
Is your Mobile
Web Content
effectively
Rendered?
Is AMP
effectively
Implemented?
How do your
ranked pages
look in Mobile
SERPs?
What’s the
AMP impact
on mobile
visibility &
traffic?
What’s
your Mobile
Visibility
impact on
Conversions?

Here’s how to answer them
#mobileﬁrstseo at #TuringFest by @aleyda from @oraintihttps://moz.com/blog/mobile-seo-stack-tools

To obtain this mobile  
search visibility increase

these mobile search conversions

And this growth trend

Now is your turn

Go raibh maith agat

Winning in a  Mobile Search World #LearnInbound

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