This document provides best practices for mobile sites, including: - By 2016, 1.5 billion people are expected to shop via mobile commerce and mobile shopping is growing rapidly. - Google plans changes to ranking to address sites misconfigured for smartphones. - The document discusses responsive, separate URLs, and dynamic serving as mobile setup options and their pros and cons from an SEO perspective. - It provides tips for mobile site architecture selection and optimization including image sizes, page weights, and canonical markup.

1. Best Practices
for Mobile Sites
Navneet
Kaushal
CEO
PageTraffic

2. The
Mobile
Landscape

10. ½
billion
mCommerce
shoppers
by
2016
71%
of
smartphone
users
shop
on
their
mobile
48%
of
retail
shopping
already
on
mobile

19. Mobile search business Case
More
than
1
out
of
every
3
searches
is
on
a
mobile
device

20. Good Practices to Maximize your Mobile SEO
Mobile
Search
has
Exploded

21. Good Practices to Maximize your Mobile SEO
Mobile
Search
has
Exploded
Take
a
Look
hGp://www.themobileplaybook.com/

22. And SEO Became Mobile-
Optimized
“…we
plan
to
roll
out
several
ranking
changes
in
the
near
future
that
address
sites
that
are
misconfigured
for
smartphone
users.”

23. 6% of the Fortune 100 are
Ready
http://www.pureoxygenmobile.com/research-two-thirds-of-the-fortune-100-are-not-mobile-optimized-for-google
Request a copy of the research at info@pureoxygenlabs.com

24. “36%
of
mobile
web
search
results
vary
from
desktop,
with
23%
showing
pages
from
completely
different
sites”
Data
provided
by
SearchMetrics
from
their
2014
US
Google
Ranking
Factors
Study

25. Desktop
results
Mobile
results

26. Googlebot
Mobile
Crawling
Errors
Changes
in
Mobile
Rankings
2014
2013
2012
Mobile
Results
&
Test
Tool
PageSpeed
Insights
Indexing
Android
Apps
Mobile
Usability
2011
2015
Usability
Warnings
Mobile
Search
Queries
Stats
Warnings
for
Flash
Sites
Faulty
Redirects

27. Choosing
a
mobile
setup

28.
Select
the
Best
Mobile
Site
Architecture

30. Good Practices to Maximize your Mobile SEO
All
of
them
have
Pros,
Cons
&
SEO
Best
PracYces

31. Good Practices to Maximize your Mobile SEO
Select
the
Most
Suitable
for
You

32. Good Practices to Maximize your Mobile SEO
Validate
with
the
previously
idenYfied
informaYon,
your
content
needs
&
technical
capacity.
Select
the
Most
Suitable
for
You

33. Responsive
Separate
URLs
Dynamic
Serving
• ALL
devices
• 1
URL
• Same
Content/HTML
• Use
CSS
to
render
pages
• Separate
Mobile
&
Desktop
URLs
example.com/m/
m.example.com
• Different
HTML
• All
devices
• 1
URL
• different
HTML
(and
CSS)
depending
on
user
agent
(desktop
or
mobile
device)
Pros
• 1
URL
• Easier
to
maintain
• Link
ConsolidaYon
• No
Redirects
>
Reduce
Loading
Time
• Recommended
By
Google
(saves
resources,
pages
crawled
once)
• BeGer
Mobile
Experience
• Faster
• Dedicated
Mobile
Content
• Easier
ImplementaYon
• 1
URL
• Link
ConsolidaYon
• Capacity
for
different
mobile
content
Cons
• Slower
• All
content
is
downloaded
whether
it
is
used
or
not.
This
can
be
problemaYc
for
image
intensive
websites
• Same
Mobile/Desktop
Content
• Link
Equity
DiluYon
• Higher
Cost
to
maintain
• Crawled
MulYple
Times
with
different
user
agents
• Slower
• Higher
Cost
to
maintain
• Old
Redirect
Lists
• Complex
technical
implementaYon
• Crawled
MulYple
Times
SEO
• Check
Google
Webmaster
Tools
Crawl
Errors
for
Redirect
&
404
Errors
• Check
Page
Load
Time
for
Mobile
and
Desktop
• Allow
Search
Engines
to
crawl
all
assets
(CSS,
Images,
JS)
• Redirect
Mobile
Users
and
Bots
to
the
mobile
site
• Test
Desktop
Site
for
Redirects
&
404
Errors
• Add
Rel=Alternate
to
desktop
and
rel=Canonical
to
mobile
site
• XML
Mobile
Sitemaps
• Use
user-­‐agent
vary
header
to
help
search
bots
to
find
your
mobile
content
• Test
for
Vary:
User-­‐Agent
HTTP
Header
Source:
John
Shehata,
ExecuEve
Director
of
Search
at
ABC
News

34. Just
because
Google
strongly
recommends
using
responsive
design
doesn’t
mean
you
should
automaEcally
choose
responsive
design
for
your
site

36. hGps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-­‐friendly/

39. Crawl
your
site
using
GoogleBot’s
mobile
User
Agent

40. If
you
are
using
separate
URLs
for
your
desktop
and
mobile
sites,
make
sure
you
have
the
correct
rel=“alternate”
annotaYon
on
the
desktop
site.
This
will
ensure
that
the
mobile
version
of
the
site
appears
in
mobile
search
Non-­‐mobile
friendly
URL
in
mobile
search.
Desktop
homepage
is
missing
the
rel=“alternate”
tag

41. According
to
research
from
BrightEdge:
According
to
BrightEdge,
72%
of
sites
with
separate
mobile
URLs
are
misconfigured,
with
a
missing
rel=“alternate”
tag
being
the
most
common
error
Source:
BrightEdge

42. Tag Mobile Pages

43. Tag Pages with Canonical
Markup
What Google says…
• Canonical markup helps make content visible to bots
and searchers
• If you have an “m.” mobile site:
• Each desktop page should contain a "rel=alternate"
link meta tag that points to the mobile URL
• Each mobile page should contain a "rel=canonical"
meta tag that points to the desktop URL
• Alternatively add notation to Sitemaps file
• Consider Javascript redirects that match on link value

44. Canonical Link Markup: Just
Do It

45. Some Best Practices
• Follow
the
"m"
convenYon
(m.novarelibrary.com
OR
lifeonterra.com/m/)
• Keep
categories
(directories)
short.
Remember
that
you
are
creaYng
a
page
that
people
touch
without
much
typing
• Limit
image
and
markup
sizes
• Limit
HTML
pages
to
25KB
to
allow
for
caching
• "Minify"
your
scripts
and
CSS
(JSLint,
CleanCSS)
• Link
to
Full
Site
• Sniff
for
User
Agent
–
DetecYon
(allow
the
user
to
decide
where
to
go)
• One
Column
Layout
with
some
whitespace
• Mobile
refers
to
the
user!

46. MOBILE SEO TIPS
• SEPARATE URLS?
• On the desktop page, add the link rel=”alternate” tag pointing to
the corresponding mobile URL. This helps Googlebot discover the
location of your site’s mobile pages.
• This tag specifies an alternative URL to the desktop page.
• <link
rel="alternate"
href="hGp://m.example.com/"
/>
• On the mobile page, add a rel=”canonical” tag pointing to the
corresponding desktop URL. This rel=”canonical” tag on the mobile
URL pointing to the desktop page is required as it signals the
relationship between the two URLs
Ø <link
rel=“canonical”
href=hGp://www.example.com/”
/>
*maintain a 1-to-1 ratio between the mobile page and the corresponding
desktop page

48. Website: www.pagetraffic.com
Email: navneet@pagetraffic.com
Twitter: @navneetkaushal
Blog: www.pagetrafficbuzz.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pagetraffic.in
THANK YOU!