In the early years of the internet, the desktop was king. While this may seem like something we take for granted today, this is no longer true. Now, mobile devices are over half of the total traffic going through google and its affiliated sites. Search Engine Optimization is a large field of study in and of itself, finding new and creative ways to make search terms, keywords, and algorithms to best serve clients from all over the world.
But, if you combine SEO with the problems of a mobile market, this kind of innovation becomes an issue. Google tends to use different algorithms for both desktop and mobile devices, so how do you make a site that can cater to both? Let’s go over some ways to make your site have maximum relevance for all manner of different computers, including the small ones everyone carries around.
Minimizing Mobile Issues
One of the most common problems with all portable devices is the use of alternative web domains for mobile users. You may remember sites like Youtube having a “.m” in front or behind their normal domains. This is the site as it is designed for mobile users, and for this, it requires a new domain and in many cases a development team that specializes in this kind of website. You should click here for some great reasons why this is a bad idea. This form of accommodation is becoming a rare sight as mobile continually accelerates ahead of the desktop competition, but it’s worth avoiding regardless.
From the Ground Up
For many websites, the issues of the mobile display are extra difficult because they have to adapt to an architecture built around a computer viewing the site. This is far easier said than done, but websites should be future-proof early, and proper management of low-level website design can be as simple as leaving comments for the future.
Don’t worry about every step of design though at first, and though this can make a lot of people cringe, the backend is infinitely more important for both mobile and desktop friendliness. If your site is not built to adjust to the parameters of a mobile phone, it just won’t. Huge problems can erupt from this, not the least of which is the user’s phone just trying to make do which can create an abomination out of a normally effective site.
An important part of any website is how the information is displayed. A good mobile site seems very stretched on a desktop if done wrong, and vice versa. One of the easiest and smartest methods for checking this is with a tool created by Google that checks your website to see if its algorithm identifies it as mobile-friendly. Though this tool sometimes gets it wrong, it’s still very useful for identifying early problems in web design and architecture.
Services to Make Use Of
It is worth noting that numerous guides and outsourcing solutions exist to help people get page rankings up to the top of the charts. If you live in Chicago, for instance, it is very easy to check SEO prices in Chicago, and this is not uncommon for other regions and niches as well. Outsourcing can be a valuable tool for any business, and though expensive, you may end up saving heartache in the end regardless.
This isn’t to mention the guides written by knowledgeable people all over the internet about how to set up a website for mobile users. You don’t need to look far, and it’s not really even worth pointing out examples here because if you have a specific issue, chances are someone somewhere has some stuff you can use to fix it. This is one of the glories of the modern net and something you should aspire to in any website you design as well. Ease of use is the number one problem with a lot of websites that cater only mildly to the mobile market.
Let me put forward an example of some specific tricks you can use for mobile users. If your page uses a standard HTML format with a text box you can type into, the number one thing for any images in that text box is for all of them to have a consistent, reliable aspect ratio. Never mind alt text, which is another useful keyword input, if your images are scattered in different aspect ratios and designs, it can make any mobile site break almost instantly unless specifically accounted for.
Don’t Wait to Optimize
That’s the biggest takeaway from any deep dive into SEO though: start with the best practices from the start. If you end up having to adjust every single page, some of which you haven’t seen in years, it can be both a huge timesink and a massive problem for your posture as your eyes glaze over.
The most interesting parts of web design involve accounting for future problems in the design of your website. If you’re wondering how to do that, visit this site for a few great recommendations. Websites are often patchworked messes using a thousand different APIs that almost always conflict (that’s a hyperbole by the way, but you’d be surprised). Don’t let your site be the pitiable type that needs a ground-up redesign because you realized that mobile phones are seeing a garbled mess of text and images.
If you’re looking for something you can start now with, here’s some practical advice: use comments on everything. Wondering what this bit is for? Wouldn’t it have been great if yourself 5 years ago had said anything about it? But, you can change that now, and add the best practices at square one starting with this habit. Programmers and business owners are different beasts, but there’s one thing everyone hates: redesigning an entire system from scratch because someone miscommunicated a specific issue.
That’s the best advice for optimizing for mobile. Start from the assumption of the best. This is good advice for any project, but especially for the wide world of the internet, it’s advice best taken seriously.
