3 Mobile SEO Errors That Can Sabotage Your Success In Search Engine Optimization

SEO errors occur, especially when it comes to mobile devices. If you are interested in finding out what these errors are, we invite you to scroll through our list and learn what you can do to avoid these mistakes. 

1. You are not using a responsive design

First of all, what is a responsive design and why is it important? Well, responsive design means that your website is designed in a way that all of its content and elements, including images and structure remains the same on all types of device. 

In 2015, Google has already begun paying close attention to the mobile usability of websites. To be fair, this fact alone should be more than enough to switch to a responsive design.

One of the main reasons a website performs better in the SERP is that it gives mobile users a better user experience than those websites that are not mobile-friendly.

In addition, it is not a secret that Google prefers to use the same URL in mobile view. This means that your web page is responsive, otherwise, it would need to have a separate mobile version with a different URL. Most importantly, if your page is responsive, you don’t have to worry about what it will look like on another device.

In addition to all of the reasons discussed above, there are a couple of other reasons why it’s worth switching to a responsive view right away. Here are a few:

• You can reach more users who use mobile devices
• Your overall cost is be reduced as you do not have to pay extra for a website optimized for another device
• Analytics is available in one place for all users
• You can expect an increase in user satisfaction and a higher conversion rate
• You can get ahead of your competition if they don’t yet use a mobile-friendly site

2. Your website loads slowly

Another SEO error is if your website loads slowly. Just like when it comes to desktop surfing, mobile users as well will lose their minds from slow-loading pages. According to Think With Google, slow loading times confuse users and negatively affect the content displayed on your website. Their research shows that those websites with a mobile version that last more than 3 seconds to fully load lose over 53% of their visitors. If your page loads too slowly, visitors will simply step down before they can see anything you have to offer them.

In addition to annoying visitors, even Google penalizes websites that load slowly with a downgraded SERP appearance. If your mobile website or app is too slow or doesn’t immediately find the information the user is searching for, 29% of them will immediately switch to another page that better meets their expectations.

To help you remedy the issue, here are some basic solutions to boost the loading time of your website:

• reduce server response time
• load only the most necessary codes in the header
• enable browser caching
• optimize your images
• JavaScript, CSS, and HTML compression
• Use Google AMP

3. Problematic multimedia content

Placing videos and multimedia content is a great way to improve the versatility of the content on your website. However, it is also very important to make sure that your website is able to play that content as well. In case this multimedia content slows down your website or is not playable at all, it can totally sabotage your mobile marketing efforts.

In the past, videos could be played using a third-party plug-in, such as RealPlayer, QuickTime, or Flash, that was integrated into browsers. Nowadays, this would only cause problems if a user tries to view them on an unsupported platform. One of the best ways to prevent this SEO error is to follow Google’s advice on using HTML5, especially if you want to display animated content.