Mobile SEO Tips: How to Help Your Website Rank Better

07/27/2023 Brandon Celotto

While online, consumers all over the world spend more than half of their time browsing websites on a mobile device. But users may not be able to find your website in the first place if it’s not optimized for mobile. And that can have a serious impact on your rankings.

What can you do about that? Our Orange County SEO agency shares a few ideas to inspire you below.

Responsive Design is a Must

Mobile devices generate more than 60% of organic search engine traffic, so customers should be able to visit your site and enjoy a user-friendly experience on any device. Otherwise, you risk losing them: one survey found that 60% of consumers abandon transactions because of a poor user experience.

That’s why using responsive web design is a must for every mobile SEO strategy. Images, text, and other key page elements will be scaled to the appropriate dimensions for the user’s screen.

As Google gives preference to mobile-friendly sites that provide a positive user experience, responsive web design can help boost your SEO ranking.

Maximize Page Load Times

Page speed is critical. If your pages take longer than three seconds to load, you risk losing visitors and their business. Google also considers page speed a major aspect of quality websites and a positive user experience. If your pages take too long to load on mobile devices, it’s time to fix that.

You can increase page speed by:

Compressing images
Reducing redirects
Caching pages
Decreasing JavaScript, HTML, and CSS code

These are just a few ideas to help you get started. Keep making improvements until you get load times down to three seconds or less.

Target Local Customers

“Near me” searches have increased dramatically in the past decade, as smartphones and smart speakers allow consumers to find local providers with minimal effort.

More than 75% of people visit a brick-and-mortar location within 24 hours of running a local search on their mobile device, and almost 30% of those searches lead to a purchase.

Optimizing your site for local searches can increase your visibility on mobile. Create content with a local focus, set up a Google Business Profile, and enable customers to review your services. All this can make your site easier to find for local searches.

Create Mobile-Friendly Content

All content on your site should be easy to read and view on a mobile device. It also needs to keep visitors engaged enough to stay on your site and explore.

Try these tips:

Keep paragraphs concise to help visitors skim text
Embrace white space for easy readability
Use brief, punchy headlines
Break up text with videos and images (compressed, of course!)

Mobile-friendly content is essential for a great user experience, so optimize yours to boost your ranking.

Need a little help to take your rankings higher? Leave it to our Orange County SEO agency!

We’ll create a bespoke SEO strategy to increase your visibility and deliver a stronger user experience. Get in touch now to learn more!

5 SEO Trends for 2022 You Need to Know About

01/20/2022 mwon

SEO evolves from year to year, and it’s crucial that you stay up to date with the latest trends to avoid falling behind. With 2022 here already, we thought it was time for our Orange County SEO specialists to share five top SEO trends for the year ahead.

Greater Focus On Website Accessibility

As the Internet becomes increasingly embedded in our lives, every website should be optimized for improved accessibility. Many people may struggle to use your site properly if you overlook this key issue: for example, around 12 million people in the U.S. have vision impairment and approximately 15% of adults experience some level of hearing difficulty.

Enhanced accessibility can provide all users with a high-quality browsing experience, regardless of their capabilities. It will also reduce the risk of dissatisfied visitors leaving your site with a negative impression of your brand.

More Websites Catering to Voice Search

Twenty-seven percent of the worldwide online population uses voice search on mobile devices. This trend will drive more and more businesses to optimize their websites for voice search in 2022, but what does that involve?

Incorporate keywords into questions users are likely to ask, especially on mobile devices, such as “where’s the nearest pizza restaurant to me?”
Implement long-tail keywords for accurate targeting.
Write in a conversational style.
Create FAQ pages packed with relevant, conversational questions and answers.

Increasing Popularity of Featured Snippets

Featured snippets appear on around 19% of SERPs, and they give users a faster way to access information. Ideally, a featured snippet will provide an answer but still compel users to click through for a more detailed insight instead of scrolling down.

In 2022 (and beyond), more brands will structure their content to earn featured snippets. One technique is to use more questions and answers in content, beginning with “who”, “what”, or “why”.

Mobile-friendly Websites Becoming More Prevalent

More than 92% of Internet users around the world went online via their mobile devices as of January 2021.So, it’s no surprise that brands will increasingly optimize their websites for mobile devices in 2022 and beyond.

Mobile-friendly websites are critical to deliver the best user experience and prevent frustrated users from leaving your site.

Combining Video and Long-form Content for Better Results

Brands will continue to embrace longer content in 2022. This typically gives readers more valuable information and encourages visitors to stay on your site for longer, unlike a short piece of content.

And video will remain a key part of SEO strategies the world over. Ninety-three percent of businesses win new customers thanks to videos they post on social media, and companies that use video grow revenue 49% faster than those that don’t. Combining long-form content and videos can help businesses improve SEO campaigns significantly.

Our Orange County SEO agency is here to help you achieve better results, whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to overhaul your current SEO strategy. Get in touch to find out how we can help you today!

What are Featured Snippets on Google and How Can They Help You?

12/22/2021 mwon

Google continually develops new ways to help searchers find the information they need. That’s one of the many reasons why it’s the most popular search engine, with a market share of more than 86% as of September 2021.

And featured snippets could be considered one of the best additions to Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) in recent years. But they’re more than just a convenient way to deliver bite-sized answers to queries — featured snippets can help your business increase its visibility and attract clicks too.

Featured Snippets Explained

Featured snippets appear at the top of the organic results on a SERP, and display a few lines of text from a website. This snippet should answer the user’s question concisely, but the link to the website is included underneath if you want to learn more.

In this example, Google answered our question with a snippet from USA Today and a few images. This provides a concise answer with multiple options if we want to explore it in more detail.

What Featured Snippet Types Appear on SERPs?

Google displays four types of featured snippets on its SERPs:

Paragraph
Table
List
Video

Let’s take a closer look at each:

Paragraph

A paragraph snippet presents a carefully selected extract from a site that matches the query best.

Table

A table snippet presents data in a reader-friendly format, ideal for comparing figures or statistics.

List

A list snippet breaks information is the simplest way to answer some queries. Lists may be bulleted or numbered (e.g. a step-by-step guide).

Video

A video might offer the most appropriate response to a query. If so, that will appear at the top of the SERP, ready to play. This can be particularly useful when searching for visual directions, such as makeup tutorials.

Benefits of Featured Snippets on Google SERPs

Here are three benefits of owning a featured snippet:

Boost Brand Awareness

Having a snippet from your site featured on a Google SERP creates an opportunity to increase awareness about your business, even if users don’t click on the link to your website immediately.

Attract More Clicks

If Google presents an eye-catching snippet of information from your site with a link to the relevant page, users are more likely to click on it than if it were further down the page (or on another page altogether). It can help you get to the top of the organic results instantly.

Adds Credibility to Your Site

When Google chooses your site to answer a user’s query with a featured snippet, that implies that your company is the most relevant resource online. This can build credibility and trust.

You can optimize your website for featured snippets, but it’s a complex process demanding in-depth research. That’s why it’s best to leave it to the experts.

Our Orange County SEO specialists can optimize your site to increase its visibility, authority, and conversions. Get in touch for your free marketing analysis now!

Mobile-friendly Websites: What are the Most Important Elements?

05/14/202105/14/2021 nettsolutions

With more than 60 percent of Google searches originating from mobile devices, your website must be optimized to deliver a quality user experience on smartphones and tablets.

Otherwise, visitors might find browsing your site so frustrating they give up and try another. And one of your competitors could win their business instead.

But what makes a website mobile-friendly?

Let’s explore five of the most important elements.

Simple navigation

Navigating the best mobile-friendly websites is a breeze.

One of the most common setups is a hamburger icon (a stack of three short horizontal bars) in a corner of the page. Users can tap this to open a vertical menu.

And every page should feature plenty of space — clutter will only confuse and irritate users on smaller screens.

Unclear page titles and illegible text can also make browsing your site more trouble than it’s worth.

Straightforward CTAs to guide users

A call-to-action (CTA) tells users what you want them to do next. They should be simple to spot and easy to follow, e.g. “get your free quote”, “sign up now”.

Lead customers to your CTAs with concise content that explains why they need to take the specified action.

How can you draw attention to CTAs? Display text in eye-catching colors, make the buttons big, and use a font that visitors can read without needing to pinch-zoom.

Responsive design suited to all devices

Responsive design ensures your site will adapt to fit any screen, across all devices. Pages will reformat automatically to avoid poor layouts and cluttered content.

Your customers will enjoy a seamless experience no matter how many devices they switch between.

Click-to-call buttons for direct communication

Click-to-call buttons empower visitors with a fast, direct way to contact your business.

This saves them the time and potential irritation of scouring your website for a number/email address or completing a form.

Let’s say you run a local Italian restaurant. A hungry customer is in the mood for a pizza, so they use voice search to find businesses like yours. They try your site, and find a click-to-call button on your homepage.

This makes it incredibly easy for them to book a table within seconds of discovering your restaurant, without trying to find your contact page while they’re standing on the street.

Images optimized for mobile

Images that work fine on your desktop site may cause issues on mobile devices if they’re too big. They’ll increase load times and leave users waiting longer than they should to browse.

And that’s a real risk when more than half of mobile site visits will be abandoned if a page takes more than three seconds to load.

Resizing and compression will bring images down to a more manageable level for mobile devices. Prioritize speed and convenience over visual flair.

These five elements are essential in mobile-friendly websites, so frequently check your site’s performance to identify improvement opportunities.

Want to learn more about how a fantastic mobile site can help your business? Get in touch with our Orange County SEO specialists!