Protect Your Mobile Web Presence

W A S H I N G T O N , D C | A P R I L 2 9 , 2 0 1 5

#RoadToC3

PROTECT YOUR MOBILE WEB

PRESENCE: TIPS FOR THE

PROCRASTINATOR

Gordy CasascoSearch and Social Analyst

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#RoadToC3

PROTECT YOUR MOBILE WEB PRESENCETips for the Procrastinator

• What is the Mobile Update?

• Mobile Tips by Site Type

• 3 Common Issues and How to Fix Them

• Utilizing Searchlight to Boost your Mobile Presence

#RoadToC3

WHAT IS THE MOBILE UPDATE?

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• The Announcement

• What is the Purpose?

• What Does This Mean for Sites?

• Testing for Mobile Friendliness

• Observations Since Release

• What Can We Expect Going Forward?

WHAT IS THE MOBILE UPDATE?

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#RoadToC3

WHAT IS THE MOBILE UPDATE?The Announcement

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WHAT IS THE MOBILE UPDATE?What Does This Mean for Sites?

• This update is Page based rather than Domain based

• The update should have no effect on desktop rankings

• Your site does not HAVE to be responsive to be mobile friendly

• SERP Changes• Increased focus on local results• Knowledge graph• App pack results

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WHAT IS THE MOBILE UPDATE?Testing for Mobile Friendliness

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

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WHAT IS THE MOBILE UPDATE?What is the Purpose?

• Provide better Mobile experience for searchers

• Follow the Money• Apps

• Differentiate Mobile vs. Desktop Search Experience

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WHAT IS THE MOBILE UPDATE?Observations Since the Release

• The Verdict? – Relatively Mild…• Increase of ~2-3% in days following the release for

the percentage of “Mobile Friendly” results on page one in Moz study

• Site names and breadcrumbs in search results

Source: http://moz.com/blog/day-after-mobilegeddon

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WHAT IS THE MOBILE UPDATE?What Can We Expect Going Forward?

• A Slow and Long Roll Out• Changes in Mobile SERP’s

beyond ranking• Breadcrumb/Sitename• “App Pack” Results• Expansion of answer results• Expansion of Local results

• Good news for procrastinators!• Google has indicated that

they will reprocess pages quickly

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MOBILE TIPS BY SITE TYPE

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• Dedicated Mobile Sites

– Subdomain (m.example.com)

– Root Domain (example.com/mobile)

• Responsive Design

• Dynamic Serving

MOBILE TIPS BY SITE TYPE

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MOBILE TIPS BY SITE TYPEDedicated Mobile Sites

• Specifically Test your “m.” and “/mobile/” URL’s

• Use rel=alternate tags for desktop pages

• Use canonical Tags on mobile pages that correspond to the desktop rel=alternate page

• Add rel=alternate tags to your xml sitemap as well

• Offer users the option to override mobile re-direction

• Check your robots.txt!

Source: bit.ly/mobile-c3

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MOBILE TIPS BY SITE TYPEResponsive Design

• Check WMT Crawl Errors for 404’s and 500’s

• Check your robots.txt and ensure that js, css and images are crawlable

• Check Page Speed on Mobile and Desktop• https://developers.google.com

/speed/pagespeed/insights/• Note: Responsive design is

recommended by Google

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MOBILE TIPS BY SITE TYPEDynamic Serving

• Use Vary HTTP Header• Hint to search engines and mobile

bots to crawl and discover both mobile and desktop content

• Make sure the robots.txt is not blocking content• This is most important on dynamic

serving sites because the html and css will likely be different depending on user-agent

• Check Page Speed

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3 COMMON ISSUES AND

HOW TO FIX THEM

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• Robots.txt Blocking JS, CSS, and Image Files

• Faulty Re-Directs

• Mobile Only 404’s

3 COMMON ISSUES AND HOW TO FIX THEM

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3 COMMON ISSUES AND HOW TO FIX THEMRobots.txt Blocking JS, CSS, and Image Files

• This seemed to be the most common issue with sites that I work with.

• Robots.txt was blocking certain js, css, and image extensions

• Direct correlation to disallow statements and “not mobile-friendly” designation

• FIX • Simplify your robots.txt• Remove unnecessary disallow

statements• Create separate disallow

statements for user-agent: googlebot

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3 COMMON ISSUES AND HOW TO FIX THEMFaulty Re-Directs

• If you have a dedicated mobile site, ensuring that proper re-directs are set up is extremely important.

• Errors and Faulty Re-Directs can slow down your site and create a negative search experience.

• FIX• Monitor Faulty Re-Directs in Google

Webmaster tools• Fix Broken Links and implement 301

Redirects• If a page on your site doesn’t have a

smartphone equivalent, keep users on the desktop page, rather than redirecting them to the smartphone site’s homepage.

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3 COMMON ISSUES AND HOW TO FIX THEMMobile Only 404’s

• Some sites serve content to desktop users accessing a URL but show an error page to mobile users.

• FIX• Use Google Webmaster

tools or Moz Crawl to find Mobile Only 404’s

• Ensure proper 301 re-directs are implemented

• Make sure that the mobile page itself is not an error page

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UTILIZING SEARCHLIGHT TO BOOST

YOUR MOBILE PRESENCE

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#RoadToC3

• Differences in Desktop and Mobile Search Behavior

• Finding Mobile Specific Keywords

• Utilizing the Visibility Explorer

UTILIZING SEARCHLIGHT TO BOOST YOUR

MOBILE PRESENCE

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UTILIZING SEARCHLIGHT TO BOOST YOUR

MOBILE PRESENCEDifferences in Desktop and Mobile Search Behavior

• Localized Search Results• Difference between

desktop and mobile results• Maps Results

• Immediate answers vs. research

• Interactive Results/Knowledge Graph• Ex. Weather• Ex. Sports scores

• Autocomplete

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UTILIZING SEARCHLIGHT TO BOOST YOUR

MOBILE PRESENCEFinding Mobile Specific Keywords

• Google search interest in "near me" has increased 34X since 2011 and nearly doubled since last year.

• The vast majority come from mobile-80% in Q4 2014.2

• The search interest for terms that include “near me”, “closest”, and “nearby” have exploded in the last few years.

Source: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/features/i-want-to-go-micro-moments.html

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UTILIZING SEARCHLIGHT TO BOOST YOUR

MOBILE PRESENCEUtilizing the Visibility Explorer

Tips:• Click “Unmanaged”• Sort by Search Volume

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UTILIZING SEARCHLIGHT TO BOOST YOUR

MOBILE PRESENCEUtilizing the Visibility Explorer

Tips:• Search for “near”, “nearby”,

or “closest”• Sort by Search Volume

GORDY CASASCOSearch and Social Analyst, Oracle

[email protected]

[email protected]

(202) 294-2813

IG: pgcasasco

gordycasasco.com