How Will Building a (M.) Mobile Website Affect My SEO?

Mobile Websites.  You’ve heard the hype, you’ve seen the Google announcements, you know that mobile sites are not only recommended but soon-to-be mandatory on April 21^st if your business wishes to maintain a successful Google search ranking.

Now that you know your site has to be mobile responsive or optimized within the next month, you may be on your way to making new changes and tweaks to your site, which brings up a whole new onset of questions.

Luckily, we can help.  Starting with the most critical question:  I am building a mobile website to prevent a decrease in my organic search traffic, but will creating a separate mobile optimized site impact my SEO? Especially if you a building an (m.) website, like m.insertmycompanyurl.com that doesn’t live on the same page as your own website?

No way!  All mobile optimized sites are pre-installed with an HTML tag that tells search engines, like Google, that the mobile site is directly related to the desktop site that is was converted from.  This means that all SEO settings from the desktop website carry over to the mobile site.

You may be saying, “But what about duplicate content penalizations?”  That’s not a problem either, as the HTML tag tells search engines that the mobile site and the desktop site share the same SEO settings as opposed to duplicating SEO settings.

Now that your SEO settings are prepared for mobile optimization, here are some Google recommendations to be mindful of while transitioning to a mobile site before April 21^st.

• Avoid faulty redirects– this is when a mobile visitor is directed to difference content than they expected, like being directed to the home page when trying to reach the contact page.
• Utilize mobile friendly design– seems pretty obvious, but Google will ensure that mobile websites are convenient and user-friendly by using its mobile friendly test tool, which you can use to increase usability before Google finds you. This will also help ensure that your mobile site is properly configured for other devices, like tablets.
• Eliminate blocked JavaScript, CSS and image files– make sure those pesky Googlebots have access to all resources on your site. If any of these are blocked, it will directly impact how the algorithms render your sites content and diminish your rankings.
• Render all content playable on mobile devices– certain licensed constrained media that requires Flash or other players are not supported on mobile devices, making the user’s experience very frustrating. Use HTML5 tags to include videos instead of video players.

When implemented correctly, a mobile site can have a significant impact on your SEO rankings.  Utilizing these tips and educating yourself on how to make the most effective mobile site will lead to success for your business and positive experiences for your customers.