Download - Mobile SEO Comparing Approach Response And Risk With Data By Jim Yu

What Advanced SEOs Should Be Doing About Mobile Comparing Approach, Response & Risk With Data

Jim Yu, CEO, BrightEdge SMX Advanced | June 11th 2014

SMX Advanced Seattle | June 11 – 12, 2014 #SMXAdvanced

Mobile Is Outpacing Desktop 10X

Source: BrightEdge Data Cube May 2014


Smartphone Share Of Organic Searches is 23%

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Smartphone share of Organic Searches


As of April 2014, Smartphone share of organic searches is

23% and

growing over

50% a year


Ranking Variables Are Becoming More Complex

85% of marketers said measuring rank across mobile devices such

as tablets as smartphones would be more or much more important in 2014


There is a BIG Difference in Smartphone V Desktop Rank

62% of

keywords have different ranks



1. Default: Do Nothing. Smartphone = Desktop

- OR -

The Different Smartphone Approaches

Advanced Mobile SEO Matrix

Same URL Different URL

Same HTML 4. “Responsive” Duplicate Content

Different HTML 3. “Dynamic

Serving” 2. “Separate”


Example of Responsive Approach

• Desktop Site “becomes” the Smartphone Site as browser width is shrunk

• Both sites are the same HTML & URL

Shrinks to

www.starbucks.com www.starbucks.com


Example of Dynamic Approach

HTML ≠

www.zillow.com/columbia-sc/ www.zillow.com/columbia-sc/


Example of Separate Approach

www.1800flowers.com/valentinesday m.www.1800flowers.com/valentinesday ≠


There Is a Slight Difference in Performance

Responsive is slightly better at -.51 (less of a rank drop)

It is not statistically significant

-0.51 -0.57 -0.52

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Responsive Dynamic Separate

Average difference between desktop and mobile ranks


So… We Dug Deeper Into The Data Cube “We harnessed the

power of the BrightEdge Data Cube, with billions of content and keyword records, to research the performance of different mobile strategies.”


Different Error Rates by Approach

Approach % with Errors

Separate 72%

Dynamic 30%

Responsive negligible

We noticed that most of the errors appeared for those with separate mobile websites.



The Most Common Errors

Error Dynamic Separate

No HTTP Vary 82% 41%

Wrong Canonical 35%

No Canonical 35%

Wrong alternate 2%

No alternate 61%

Disallow Robots on Mobile subdomain robots.txt

16%

Redirecting all pages to mobile home page 12%



Example of No HTTP Vary Usage

Without signaling to the search engines that the content varies by “User Agent”, in addition to “Accept-Encoding”, search engines may think a number of possibilities, with the worst case being that there is a cloaking attempt. From m.[redacted-domain].com


Example of incorrect rel=canonical

From m.[redacted-domain].com/page the canonical pointed back to the mobile website.

From www.[redacted-domain].com/page the desktop page pointed back to itself. Both canonicals should point back to the same page, regardless of

whether it is the mobile or desktop version.


Example of missing rel=alternate

From the same desktop page as the previous slide, a search for “alternate” in the page source, finds no rel=alternate tags


Example of incorrect robots.txt

This is very bad. From m.[redacted-domain].com


BrightEdge Data Shows non-compliant sites result in a lower rank by almost

2 positions

As Expected, Non-Compliant Sites do not Rank Well



This Results in Loss of Mobile Traffic

68% lost Smartphone opportunity



What Really Impacts Your Mobile SEO Approach

Enterprises need to evaluate the risks of: 1. Misimplementation – Smartphone is only

becoming more important. Can you risk losing smartphone share?

2. Ongoing Maintenance – You’ve configured everything correctly but with each website release, the configuration needs to be checked.


The Pros & Cons of Each Mobile Approach

Responsive Dynamic Separate

Speed (-) Unneeded or

large assets + (-) Redirects

Content Maintenance

+ (-) Multiple sets (-) Multiple sets

Compliance + (-) HTTP Vary (-) Vary &

rel canonical /alternate

Link Dilution + + If not compliant


Takeaways


For the Responsive approach, BrightEdge recommends…

Making sure to implement conditional loading correctly for fast page load times. 1. Reduce the number of asset files to download 2. Reduce the file size of large image or video asset

files

Smartphone Desktop


For the Dynamic approach, BrightEdge recommends the following

1. Ensure your site is not perceived to be cloaking. The proper

way to signal different content for different user agents is to use “User Agent” in the HTTP Vary header.

2. Remember to optimize your mobile content for on page Factors, just as you did for Desktop SEO.


For the Separate approach, BrightEdge recommends the following checklist

1. Ensure your site is compliant with HTTP Vary because search engines will

wonder why you are taking smartphone users to a different URL 2. Let the search engines know how to combine link equity.

1. Ensure that rel=canonical is used correctly: full subdomain and

domain on the canonical URL. The canonical URL shouldn’t redirect. 2. Ensure that rel=alternate is used correctly and for each known

variation of the canonical page.

3. Allow search engines to crawl the alternate pages in robots.txt


Summary

• Smartphone Share Of Voice is 23% and growing by 50% a year

• Mobile is outpacing desktop 10X • 62% of keywords have different rank • Ranking variables are becoming more complex • There is a slight difference in Rank via Mobile

approach • Risk and compliance are the big factors that

impact mobile approach • Incorrect configuration can result in up 68% lost

Smartphone opportunity


Thank You!

8,500 brands, 750+ customers

150+ years SEO experience

The Trusted Leader in

Enterprise SEO Offices in CA, NYC, Chicago, London

Jim Yu, CEO BrightEdge |Email: [email protected] |Twitter @brightedge

mailto:[email protected]