Mobile Search and SEO
By: Sean Spencer
Mobile Search
Mobile search has been on the rise for the last decade. This trend has caused most websites to think “mobile first”, which is creating websites that can adapt to any device size ( especially smartphones ). With a mobile friendly site, you’ll be more likely to appear in searches.
Number of mobile phone search users in the United States from 2014 to 2020 ( Statista 2020 )
What is SEO?
SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of improving the quality of your website to increase the quantity of your web traffic. It is not just about the search engine itself; it’s about understanding your targeted demographic for your website. What are people searching for online? What answers are they looking for? What keywords are they searching for? What content do they want to consume?
Search engines have three main functions for the user:
Crawling - the search engine exploring the internet for code and content for each URL based on the query.
Index - the search engine then stores all the information found during the crawling process in an index.
Ranked - the content is organized based on relevance for the searcher’s query to give the user the best results. (Moz).
The main goal is to promote your website, especially through organic (non-paid) results to create brand awareness. Most online traffic is driven by search engines. Out of all US searches, only about 3% of people click on paid advertisements. When proper SEO is set up correctly, you can bring in web traffic for free. With paid advertising, you need funding to continue driving traffic to your site (Moz).
The SEO process summarized!
Good & Bad SEO
There are multiple ways to gain web traffic to achieve the great SEO results for your website. The website’s content should be organized, accessible, along with being search engine and mobile friendly. You should label all your content accordingly and include the correct metadata and headings for each page. To make your website search engine friendly, be sure to use keywords that are relevant to your website (Nahai, 82). For example, if your website is about Michael Jordan, some keywords could be 23, Chicago Bulls, MVP, 1990’s, and NBA Champion.
Bad SEO, however, will not optimize your website for search results and won’t bring traffic to your website. Your content should be unique, original and relevant, and therefore you should avoid duplicating content. Do not lie to your users. Keyword stuffing is repeating the same keywords to optimize your website and is bad SEO practice. This will discourage potential visitors and is a signal for search engines that you are trying to trick their algorithms. Any website that takes longer than 4-5 seconds to load and isn’t live 24/7 is considered bad SEO practice. Modern software and a good host should help you create your website and to load fast (Alex Chris).
In the modern era, good SEO and having a mobile friendly website is essential to driving free web traffic to your brand.
Here’s a video that can further show you how to use SEO to gain web traffic on Google!