Mobile SEO – how do you make sure that your website is optimized for mobile use?
How different is this from regular SEO (search engine optimization)?
Below are 10 tips to help your mobile website go up the ranks in search engines:
1. Top of the list
Ensure that you create a mobile Site Map. This is a piece of XML code that is directly from Google Webmaster Central. Google recommends that you do this and if possible, you avoid dSitemap Creation tools.
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″ ?>
<urlset xmlns=”http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9″
xmlns:mobile=”http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-mobile/1.0″>
<url>
<loc>http://mobile.example.com/article100.html</loc>
<mobile:mobile/>
</url>
</urlset>
Important Note: Always include the <mobile:mobile/> tag, so that your mobile site will always be crawled.
2. Unique Name
Every mobile Site Map should have a unique name – but “URLs serving multiple markup languages can be listed in a single Site Map”.
3. Mobile Sitemap for Mobile SEO
In case you still plan to use the Google Sitemap Generator for creating your Site Map, Google cautions that you will “need to create a separate config file for each Mobile Sitemap.
4. Short Headlines
Another secret to mobile SEO is to avoid using long titles. “21 Tips for Turning your Pet into a Money-Making Machine While Also Helping It Lose Weight” will not work for a mobile site. Always go for short blog post headline keep it really simple.
5. Google Submission
Always remember to submit it to Google webmasters, like you would with a regular Site Map.
6. Submission to Mobile Directories
With mobile blogs, as long as you’ve set them up properly using the right plug-ins, mobile SEO won’t be a problem. However, do remember that if you don’t submit your websites or blogs to mobile directories, then you’d be invisible. All the SEO in the world won’t be any help if you don’t seem to exist!
7. Latest SEO News
Keep an eye on SEO principle.com, a site which reports all the latest and most recent SEO news from Google particularly from the head of Google’s Webspam team. Moreover, do check out the YouTube Google Webmaster Central channel for the latest SEO news as well.)
8. Youtube Video
Use Youtube video to drive traffic to your mobile website. Your mobile site URL and a call to action should be prominently displayed. Have you used Google’s mobile web index? You’ll notice that most of the results are YouTube pages. It’s what’s working right now so better use it.
9. W3C Mobile Web Best Practices
Read about the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 page, at http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/#d0e1099. You’ll find out all sorts of helpful articles including how to keep your pages under 21k plus tips for SEO.
10. Googlebot-Mobile
Get acquainted with Googlebot-Mobile, a very special bot which looks for “mobile-friendly” sites and then includes them in Google’s mobile web index.
Overall, mobile SEO is still starting… it’s still in its infancy. So follow the tips I’ve laid out in here and remember to make your blog posts useful and interesting so your readers will find it worth coming back to.
