Google Mobile Site Ranking: Today mobile devices bring the largest chunk of online business and their influence is only expected to expand. This is why Google chose to switch to mobile-first. This platform opened new possibilities for website optimization.
To improve your website ranking you must integrate mobile SEO in the site.
Certain factors can cause your mobile site ranking to go high or low in Google. We can divide these factors into three categories: user experience, technical and content. There is a fourth category that incorporates factors that don’t fit into the key three categories but are still worth mentioning.
Technical Factors:
1. The first thing to consider here is your website’s speed. It should be fast and if it’s good then that will improve your google mobile site ranking. Everybody enjoys web pages that load fast. Users today are more impatient than they were before so if your site is taking too long to load they quickly move to the next. Users are even more impatient when browsing using mobile devices.
2. The second thing to consider is Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). This element is key because it makes your website pages easily cacheable and pre-renderable for browsers. This, in turn, enables your pages to load more than 30 times faster than standard pages.
3. Flash content. Having flash content on your site is bad for your mobile ranking on Google. Most mobile browsers cannot support the flash content and therefore cannot display it. For this reason, you’re better off having none on the site. If users cannot see the content it’s pointless having it there plus you risk getting penalized by Google for having hidden content on the mobile site.
4. Technical errors. This is a no-brainer; they are bad for your mobile site ranking. Allowing bugs and errors to be on your site is a sign of disrespect to users and yourself. However, it’s normal to have issues but they must be addressed fast.
If users keep finding errors or being redirected to non-existing pages, this could cost you a lot in the long run. So deal with the small problems before they become too big to handle. How to get your website ranked on the first page of google will help in setting up your main website for ranking.
User Experience Factors:
1. 
Unordered lists. These are good. Google tends to reward mobile websites that have unordered lists. However, make sure the lists don’t have too many elements in them because the screen on mobile devices can only display so much at once. The best number to work with is nine.
2. Images. Apart from making your mobile site aesthetically pleasing, images leave a stronger impression on your audience.
You should, however, ensure the images are no more than four on one page and the file size should be small so that loading speed is not compromised.
3. Intrusive interstitials. These are bad. One of the things internet users hate the most are pop-ups. They are more annoying on a mobile device because the screen is already small.
Google understands users’ plight so they have an update that gets rid of this pop-ups and they penalize mobile sites with this component by ranking them low.
4. Font size. A small font is bad for your mobile size. As much as mobile screens are not large, people need to be able to comfortably read the content; otherwise what is the point? Rule of thumb is to use the value 16 pt font on the pages.
5. Small touch elements. If you have elements such as check boxes and like buttons on your mobile site you need to be careful because they could easily work against you. It can be cumbersome for users trying to use these elements from their mobile phone. Avoid them at all cost and if they must be there do not place them close to each other.
6. Internal links. You should be careful where internal links are concerned. Mobile pages usually have about 75% fewer links that desktop pages. This is because there is a size limitation for mobile sites. For enhanced user experience, the links need to be minimal.
Content Factors:
1. Keywords and interconnected phrases. When these are used in the body of your pages, they can benefit your site. However, you should be careful not to over optimize. If keywords appear too many times, your content will seem unnatural and hard to read.
The rule of thumb is, the longer the text, the more the keywords used. However since mobile sites have shorter texts, you have to limit the keywords and interconnected phrases. Keep it simple and natural and you’ll be okay.
2. Word count. Desktop sites have the capacity of handling many words in every page. However mobile sites should not be too wordy because navigating on mobile is harder. Keep your articles between 700 and 1000 words to be on the safe side.
Additional Factors:
Other additional factors to consider if you want to improve your mobile site’s ranking on Google include social signals and local search optimization.
Social signals can benefit your mobile site. Engagement on active social platforms can help boost your site irrespective of what social engagement platform you’re using. Users usually browse social media sites through their mobile phones as well so why not ride on this traffic to promote your site.
An average Facebook user spends an average of 30 minutes on the site daily. Research shows that over 77% of content from sites is shared through mobile phones on apps such Facebook messenger and WhatsApp making them great tools for attracting traffic to your site.
Local SEO is important for any business that has a physical location. You can carry a mobile device anywhere with you including to shops and other business areas. Mobile SEO enables your affiliate marketing or other business to be more relevant online because people are able to get to you and contact you.
However, when it comes to purchasing, most people window shop for items using their mobile phones but then make the transaction using their desktop. This is mainly because this process is sensitive and users feel safer using a big screen which they can manipulate easily.
I would love your feedback, questions, or insights you have into google mobile site ranking. Please leave your comments below!
Hi Wayne!
Thank you for all the effort and details you put into this article.
For me, this was even too much info. Maybe because I had a hard working day, yesterday. I prefer smaller pieces of info. 7 tips to improve my SEO ranking would have been enough for me. Is this only me, or for other readers the same.
Nonetheless, you provide excellent insider info, and it is helpful, there were facts I did not know and will help me building my SEO ranking in the future.
Overall, a site with overwhelming info in case you can handle it as customer haha.
Have a good time and if possible can you check the size of your font in the comments? Seems a bit big
Hi Johann
I suppose it is quite detailed but maybe one person uses certain tips and others will use the remaining tips, I guess what I’m saying is you can use the ones that will work for you but I agree it is fairly detailed.
I will check the font size, Thanks for the heads up.
Wayne
I found this to be an incredibly useful article because I do not have much computer training so a lot of the technical jargon is unfamiliar to me, but now I can discuss these issues with people who do know what these issues are and I can ask them much more intelligent questions. I have a smart phone that my local Small Business Administration office said was mobile friendly (although I need far more information than that), and they have arranged for me to meet with a smart phone expert. I do have one question beforehand: your article says that there should be images on the article that smart phone users can see. Other people in the WA community have told me that images take up space on a smart phone and can irritate smart phone users who are hurriedly looking for word content. I am wondering what your reaction is? I would welcome your thoughts. Two hours later: the word I was searching for above but couldn’t think of was “bandwidth” that other WA community members were concerned about.
I see you are starting out right by getting smart phone training, These training’s can really help. As far as images go you just don’t want to load your posts or pages up with images. You can test your phones load time On Wealthy Affiliate under Site Rubix and then manager then details of your site. I have no big problem with 4 or 5 smaller images per post or page with 1000 plus words.
Wayne
What if you have several images that are words only. One of the tips you gave was to use no more the 4 images. But you also say that people prefer easy to understand sites, especially for a mobile device.
Do you think I would lose points on Google mobile site ranking because I use 10+ word images and often have more the 1k words?
You would not lose points with google by adding over 4 images on your sites, you would probable gain points but it would make for slow loading on mobile devises. This would drive customers away, They will not wait now days for slow loading sites.
You have to work out a happy medium that works for you, test your mobile load times as you can do in Wealthy Affiliate very easily. Hope this answers your question.
Wayne