Mobile-Friendly SEO: Why & How? Ari Roth at SMX Israel 2015

@aroth26 bit.ly/mobile-friendly-seo
Mobile-Friendly SEO:
Why & How?
Ari Roth
SMX Israel 2015

Ari Roth
• Senior Digital Marketing Manager at
Jerusalem’s DriveHill Media
• SEO
• PPC
• Ecommerce consulting
• Email marketing
• Head of SEO audit efforts at DriveHill

Background on Mobile Web & Search

The Meteoric Rise of Mobile
 2007 – iPhone introduced
 2008 –1st Android phone –
HTC Dream
 2010 – Android sales pass
iPhone sales

Mobile Overtakes Desktop in Web & Search
Web
 May 2015 Google announcement:
 “More Google searches take place on
mobile devices than on computers in 10
countries including the US and Japan.”
 October 2015 Google SVP of Search:
 "For the first time, we’re getting more
searches on mobile devices than on
desktop“
 ^ CLARIFIED TO BE WORLDWIDE!
Search

What Does Mobile-Friendly Mean?
 Factors that are considered by search engines
(discussed more by Jonathan):
 Usability
 Navigational spacing & clickability
 Readability without zooming or side scrolling
 Content loads on mobile
 No Flash
 No mobile-only 404s
 No faulty redirects
 No interstititals
 Page load speed
 Crawlability
 Don’t block Javascript or CSS

Your Site Isn’t Mobile-Friendly?
No Tags for You!
 ANSWER #1: Your site will not have the
“mobile-friendly” label in search results.
 Negative CTR effect
 Google launched this in November 2014
 Bing followed suit in April 2015
#SEOFAIL

Your Site Isn’t Mobile-Friendly?
MOBILEGEDDON!
 ANSWER #2: Your site will rank significantly
lower in mobile search!
 On April 21, 2015, Google launched an update
which incorporated mobile-friendliness as a
direct ranking factor in mobile search results.
 Depending on the industry, this could have a huge
effect on your organic search traffic.
 Bing announced they will follow suit
 How big is the effect?
 Google: bigger than Panda or Penguin!

LET THAT SINK IN…
4%12%

LET THAT SINK IN…

Case Study
 Non mobile-friendly Furniture Retailer in Internet Retailer’s Second 500 for last 2 years
 Following update, they lost:
 -11.44% of their mobile organic traffic
 -14.63% of their mobile organic transactions

Case Study (contd.)
 Mobile site was in development at time of update, went live in mid-May
 Gains took over a month to be seen – takes time to crawl!
 Starting in July:
 Mobile organic traffic surged over +30% over the next 2 months compared to the 2 months prior
 Mobile organic transactions went up almost +20% from this segment of traffic

@aroth26@aroth26 bit.ly/mobile-friendly-seo
Mobile is an “add on”… Let’s get
our website right before we go
there!
OLD
SCHOOL
MARKETER

Options

TECHNICAL CONTENT
AHEAD

Comparing the 3 Main Options
Option Same URL? Same HTML? Vary:
User-Agent?
Redirects? Rel=“Canonical” &
Rel=“Alternate”?
Responsive Design
Dynamic Serving
Separate URLs
Step by step checklist found here: bit.ly/ari-roth-mobile-seo-checklist

 Google & Bing’s preferred option
 Jonathan will go deeper into this option:
 Technical to-do’s
 Server configuration
 Implementation errors
 Etc.
 Same URL & HTML for mobile & desktop
 CSS changes the layout for each browser
 Example Site: BostonGlobe.com
Responsive Design

 One URL
 Good for SEO
 All links to one URL
 No crawling / indexing many URLs
 Good for sharing
 Good for developers
 No complicated device detection, redirection, annotation
 Easier to maintain
Responsive Design: Pros

Responsive Design: Cons
 Possible slow page load b/c lots of code
 3G < Ethernet
 Can’t fully optimize for either category:
 Changes made to desktop show up on mobile
 Changes made to mobile show up on desktop

 Same URL for both mobile & desktop
 Different HTML code for each device, based
on server detecting user-agent.
 Different images
 Different navigation
 Different text
Dynamic Serving

 Cloaking is showing different user agents
different content and can cause penalties.
 Problem: dynamic serving looks like cloaking!
 Solution: Add “Vary: User-Agent” to server
response code
 This tells Google that your cloaking is for a
legitimate reason: giving users a better user
experience.
What About “Cloaking”?

Dynamic Serving: Pros
 One URL
 Good for SEO
 All links to one URL
 No crawling / indexing many URLs
 Good for sharing
 Good for developers
 No complicated device detection, redirection, annotation
 Can fully optimize for mobile-specific search
intent
 Search Analytics: “nearby”, “download app”, etc.
 Can fully optimize for mobile-specific user
experience

 High cost of maintenance & more
complicated for SEO
 Two sets of code to optimize / update
 More complicated for developers
 Device detection imperfections
 Adjusting user-agent strings for new devices
 Worse for crawling
 Bots crawl with multiple user agents
Dynamic Serving: Cons

 Usually m.site.com
 Different URLs and HTML
 Bidirectional annotation:
 Rel=“Canonical” from mobile to desktop
 Rel=“Alternate” from desktop to mobile
 Utilize 302 (temporary) relative redirects
 Like dynamic, add “Vary: User-Agent” to
server response code
 Example: Sephora.com (minus Vary header)
Separate URLs

Separate URLs: Pros
 Can fully optimize for mobile-specific
search intent
 Search Analytics: “nearby”, “download app”,
etc.
 Can fully optimize for mobile-specific user
experience
 Calls to action
 Formatting
 Headers
 Click-to-call

 High cost of maintenance
 Two URLs:
 More complicated for SEO
 Dynamic Rel=“Canonical” & Rel=“Alternate” tags
 Risk of duplicate content if done incorrectly
 Links don’t all go to one place!
 More complicated for developers
 Device detection and redirection imperfections
 More complicated for crawling
 Bots crawl with multiple user agents
 Currently NOT recommended by Bing
Separate URLs: Cons

MOBILE SEO TOOLS

 Not using “Vary: User-Agent”
 Solution: Check server response codes using Fetch
as Google or the SEO Book tool
 Bad redirects confuse Google
 Solution: Check with Screaming Frog, DeepCrawl,
and/or Chrome device emulation & Redirect Path
plugin
 Search Console message about blocking static
resources (July 28, 2015)
 Google can’t tell if you’re mobile-friendly if you
block their access to Javascript and/or CSS
 Solution: See what they see with Fetch as Google &
use robots.txt to unblock
Tools for Fixing Mobile Errors

 Incorrect canonical and alternate tags could
create duplicate content and “index bloat”
 Solution: Check page code via Screaming Frog or
manually using “inspect element”
 Will also need to address past index bloat if it
exists by searching for site:m.site.com and
manually removing these URLs in Search
Console. They will still show up when they need
to!
Tools for Fixing Mobile Errors #2

 Check everything using Google’s mobile-
friendly testing tool
 Search Console shows mobile usability errors,
mobile crawl errors, and mobile keywords
 Slow load is especially bad on mobile
 PageSpeed Insights from Google
 Which devices need optimization?
 Analytics > Audience > Mobile > Devices
Google Tools for Mobile SEO

Final Options to Consider

 Some big companies are making the move
from mobile sites to apps!
Why?
 Increase engagement by taking advantage of
mobile usage patterns (see graphic)
Problems:
 Psychological barriers to download
 Not optimal for SEO, but app indexing and
deeplinking mean it might be more viable for
search long-term
Apps – An Emerging Option

 Unaffected by updates so far – maybe soon?
 General belief: give them the desktop version
 BUT…
 Marketers must make data-driven decisions.
 If data shows mobile site converts better and/or
attracts more traffic, do that instead!
 A/B test if inconclusive
Tablets – Which Site Do They Get?

1. Mobile is a huge part of most digital
marketing and isn’t going anywhere.
Prioritize it NOW.
2. Know all your options well before making a
decision.
1. Responsive Design
2. Dynamic Serving
3. Separate URLs
4. Apps
3. Use available tools to help you diagnose
problems.
4. It’s almost lunchtime!
Takeaways

Thank You!
• Senior Marketing Manager - DriveHill Media
• Find the full presentation here
• Tweet me here

Mobile-Friendly SEO: Why & How? Ari Roth at SMX Israel 2015

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