Mobile Content Marketing Best Practices & Checklist

A decade ago, SEO specialists had this motto: “if you don’t have a website, your business doesn’t exist.” Now, with the ubiquity of mobile devices and smartphones, the motto has changed: “If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, your business might as well not exist.” That is a slight exaggeration, but it’s not far from the truth.

With as many as 63% of internet searches coming from mobile devices, your website should be mobile-friendly. If not, users will hit back and search for your competitors. This post will discuss some best practices for mobile content marketing and SEO to help your website perform well for mobile searches.

Further Reasons to Get Mobile Content Marketing & SEO Right

It’s important to reiterate how much the search landscape has changed. A mobile version of a website was once a “nice-to-have” asset, but now, mobile reigns king between desktop and mobile presence. Some may argue it may even be more imperative to have a great mobile user experience than on a desktop now. And there are numbers to prove it.

Stats Proving the Importance of Mobile SEO

• 70% of internet browsing time happens on mobile devices

• 74% of users will be more than likely to return to a mobile-friendly website

Improving mobile experience is vital now that your target audience likely shops from their phone. Of course, creating a positive user experience for these devices requires a mobile content marketing strategy and a mobile SEO checklist of best practices. Here are some of the principles that every mobile content marketing strategy should address:

1. Speed Up Load Time

2. Incorporate Responsive Design

3. Create Micro-Moments

4. Focus on UX Design

5. Optimize for Local Listings

6. Optimize for Mobile SEO

7. Create Mobile-Friendly Content

We will analyze these elements and why they belong in your mobile content marketing strategy, regardless of your industry or brand.

Speed Up Your Load Time

How long do you wait for a website to load? If you say more than three seconds, you’re more patient than the average user. The average user says a “good” load time for a mobile website is 2-3 seconds, much quicker than a desktop. As many as 53% of users will abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load. Slow site speed is a common perpetrator of high bounce rates. So the lesson is simple: your website needs to load fast!

There are numerous causes of slow website speed, including poor coding, too many ads, and bloated image sizes. Fixing these problems will do wonders to increase your website load time.

You can use a tool like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to identify website speed issues. However, there could also be more serious errors that need fixing to increase your site speed.

Working with a digital marketing agency like Pedestal Search can help you identify and correct site speed issues.

Incorporate Responsive Design Into Your Mobile SEO

Responsive design allows a website’s appearance to accommodate any device you view it. That is vital for mobile content marketing and SEO. If you’ve ever tried loading the desktop version of a website on a smartphone, you’ll understand how messy it can look.

Responsive design eliminates crowded and cluttered layouts that would work on a desktop but not on a mobile device. That is crucial because if your website doesn’t fit on a user’s screen, they’ll get frustrated and leave your site altogether. SEO success depends more on just ranking for keywords. If a well-optimized site for keywords has a poor layout, visitors will leave sooner than later (which reduces SEO performance anyway).

A pleasing responsive design combines UX design and coding skills, usually from working with a digital marketing agency. Here at Pedestal Search, we work with businesses to ensure their websites look and function well no matter what devices their target customers use.

Plan for Micro-Moments in Your Mobile Content Marketing Strategy

Micro-moments happen when people uses a mobile device to learn, act, do, or buy something at a particular instance. For example, a user may look up a topic or product of interest while waiting for a bus or an appointment. These moments are critical because consumers often make decisions in these instances, and being present during these moments can earn you the ideal choice for your target audience. But how can you be present at these micro-moments?

You can do that by addressing one of these four key micro-moments:

• I Want to Know

• I Want to Go

• I Want to Do

• I Want to Buy

Essentially, you want to plan various aspects of your mobile content marketing strategy to address these goals. That would mean planning your keyword research, content creation, local optimization, and so forth to answer what your customers are looking for at that moment. That would also mean understanding your target audience’s behavior and daily lives.

Of course, uncovering such insights on your own can be challenging. Here at Pedestal Search, we work with brands to help them discover who their audience is to plan mobile content marketing strategies that meet them where they are.

Focus on UX Design

Closely related to responsive design is the user experience (UX) design. Frankly, it belongs at the top of every mobile SEO checklist. UX design encompasses a broad range of principles, including responsive design, making your website easy to navigate. Poor UX design repels visitors, while excellent UX design attracts them. Elements to tick off when ensuring your website has good UX design include:

• Thumb-friendly design for easy scrolling on a mobile device

• Legible font for mobile devices, especially smartphones

• Call-to-actions (CTA) that are easy to find

We could spend an entire blog (or several) talking about UX design and its importance for mobile SEO. Working with UX specialists is crucial to executing proper UX design.

Optimize for Local Listings

If your business has physical locations such as a brick-and-mortar location, ignoring local SEO would be a mistake. Up to 86% of consumers find local businesses using Google Maps, and 76% of smartphone users who search for a business will visit that company in 24 hours. That’s why it’s vital to optimize your website so it’s discoverable. Ignoring that would be a wasted opportunity.

That will likely mean optimizing your website for keyword phrases that contain “near me” and “where to buy…”. For example, for an art supply business located in Toronto, you might want to optimize for the phrase “art supply store in Toronto.”

You can incorporate this keyword into landing pages and web content. Also, you’d want to use other tools such as Google My Business (GMB) to give your customers detailed info about your whereabouts.

There are numerous other techniques to help boost your local listings. Working with a digital marketing agency such as Pedestal Search will help you determine which strategies are best for your business.

Optimize Your Mobile SEO Tags for Better Results

This mobile SEO checklist would be incomplete without actually mentioning keyword optimization. Yes, times have changed, but the fundamentals of SEO remain the same, even for mobile devices.

That means optimizing your title tags and meta descriptions. They need to stand out even on more mobile devices because users are often scanning Google SERPs for the result that seems most relevant.

Your title tag should contain the keyword and mention the product or topic your audience is searching for. Your meta description should have a concise description that gives the reader a clear idea of what they can expect to read on your page.

And don’t forget your URL. When creating a mobile version of your website, you should create a separate URL for the mobile version. Doing so allows you to create a customized experience for those who visit your site on a mobile device first.

Here at Pedestal Search, we offer a robust SEO strategy that encompasses keyword research and optimization for desktop and mobile devices.

Create Mobile-Friendly Content to Complete Your Strategy

Last but not least comes content creation. It’s the foundation of a mobile content marketing strategy. Having the right content for mobile devices is both an art and a science, a balance that you want to master – winning your target audience over depends on it!

Remember, users are looking to learn something new or want to justify their decision to buy or do something. Content helps them accomplish these actions.

When creating traditional text content (i.e., blogs, landing pages), writing for a pleasing user experience and shorter attention spans is essential. Start by keeping your sentences and paragraphs short (2-3 sentences top). Intersperse longer blocks of text with bullet points, photos/videos, and page breaks.

And don’t forget there are dozens of different types of content too, including:

• Video (which accounts for the majority of web searches)

• Infographics

• Interactive

• Games

• Social Media Copy

Of course, choosing a suitable content format, length, and tone depends on your audience’s understanding. But working with a digital marketing agency such as Pedestal Search can help you plan and create engaging content that resonates with your audience.

Make Mobile Content Marketing Work for Your Business

Mobile content marketing and SEO are staples for modern digital marketing, regardless of your industry, business, size, or location. Your target audience is likely looking for your services or products by tapping on their phones. And that’s where you need to meet them.

Fortunately, optimizing your website for smartphones and tablets is achievable with a mobile SEO checklist. Also, working with a digital marketing agency such as Pedestal Search can help you identify the strategies that will work best for your mobile site.

Are you looking to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy? Get in touch with us to make help you get started.