Is your website Mobile friendly?

Till now I did not seriously think about the need to implement SEO to optimize a website’s performance on mobiles.

Yesterday while getting back home from work, I thought we would go out have dinner some place. I had found out about a new Thai restaurant and wanted to try it out. I Googled on my mobile phone, found the website and their contact number. It took me a quite some time though to get to their contact number because the images on the page were taking very long to download…… It got me thinking. There must me so many people like me who were trying to find some information from the internet through their mobile phone.

Are webmasters equipped to accommodate mobile users?

Because if they are not, they are missing out not a hugely significant traffic! Think about it….people on the move may not only need information, they might want to buy gifts, purchase plane tickets, buy movie tickets….the list is endless.

Optimizing web sites for mobiles is becoming absolutely essential. We can expect the searches from mobiles to double and triple in the coming years.

Mobiles are getting better and better and soon they will replace your notebook. We all like to carry devises that are easy to carry and can do everything for us that our notebook does. It then makes sense to have your web site mobile ready. Especially if yours is an ecommerce site, it is absolutely essential to have your website mobile enabled.Most sites will be accessible on mobiles but it will certainly help to optimize your web site for mobile users too. The difference between a web site that is optimized for mobile users and a web site that is just optimized for others is enough to make you lose your potential customers to your competition!

What are the SEO best practices of optimizing your website for mobile devises?

The basic rules remain the same.

1. Your website should load fast. Avoid heavy images, flash, frames etc.

2. Content should be focused on the topic and persuasive, remember mobile users are even more impatient that the regular web surfers. The internet speeds may not be as fast and they want to get to the information fast.

3. WordPress has plugins that will make your blog mobile friendly within no time.Mobile surfers have the option of switching to the standard version of your site. You can check out the plugin here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-pack, make sure though that your download and install the version that is compatible for your site. (I once made my whole sidebar disappear because I did not notice that a particular plugin was meant for another version. Well…we learn)

4. There are plenty of solutions that claim to make your website mobile friendly within no time. I would recommend going  through some reviews before buying the service.

5. Have short and targeted titles for each of your web pages.

So go ahead and make your web site mobile friendly. And yes…you can track your mobile traffic through Google analytics. You do not have web analytics installed yet? I suggest you do that right away. It is easy to install and you will have so much information about your website and visitors that you will then need the best practices for understanding and deciphering all the data!

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