Google tells us that more searches are started on mobile devices than on desktops or laptops. More purchases are completed on mobile devices, and many people read blogs, do research, and even do most social media tasks on their phones. What does this mean to marketers and specifically content marketing?

Google has been telling us this for a while, and so have web designers and others. It is past time for us to listen, and to make our content marketing not only mobile friendly, but mobile priority.

How do we do it? Here are some tips about content marketing in a mobile world.

Be Responsive at Least

The very first way we started to set up websites for mobile was to initiate responsive websites. The meant, quite simply, that the code on the website would detect the device the site was being viewed on and respond accordingly. Text would flow properly, pictures would appear like they should but with adjusted resolution and more.

This is what we call now the mobile minimum. If you do not at least have a responsive website and users have to scroll around using their fingers and touchscreens to see your whole site, access your menu, and more the likelihood is they will leave your site and find one that works better on their mobile device.

Quite simply that means you could be losing over half of your organic search traffic in bounce rates. Staggering and tragic, and totally preventable.

What Does AMP Really Mean to You?

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. Why did Google embark on the AMP project at all? Simple. You have about four seconds for your page to load, or a user will abandon it and go somewhere else. If you are close to that loading time, you probably have bounce rate issues.

A part of this is because your site load times depend on an optimal connection. If your site is complex enough to take that long to load, if the user has a weak cell signal or a less than optimal WiFi connection, you might be losing out.

This means that you should be attempting to get the fastest load times possible without compromising site design. The closer to the one second mark you are, the better. The faster your content loads, the more likely readers are to actually read and react to it.

Your shopping cart is just as important or more so, and while that is a separate discussion, a shopping cart is content. Speed matters as much as responsiveness, and in today’s market is not optional.

Mobile First Search and Content Marketing

Heard about mobile first yet? It is probably past time to read up, but essentially Google is updating parts of its index to look at certain mobile sites first for ranking in certain areas before it looks at desktop sites. It makes sense with the way search is headed.

What this means to content marketers is that your target keywords must be more geared toward how people search on their phones and tablets rather than typing. This means a few different things.

  • Voice Search: Many users use voice search, which means long tail, full sentence queries are more common than single keyword queries.
  • Local Information: Is your business information up to date with Google? Your Website? Phone number? Restaurant menu? These are the things people are searching for on their mobile devices and wrong information can frustrate them and send them to your competition.
  • Shorter Content: Concise answers and medium form content rule the mobile space. If your article is longer, they may save it to read later on their computer (please enable this feature) but users are more inclined to skim on their phones.
  • Video: The same goes for video. Longer, more detailed video still has a place, but not in mobile search. Keep it brief, or at least have summary options.

Mobile first means your website needs to be SEO optimized for mobile yes, but don’t neglect your desktop side either. Your longer form content is still relevant, and there are still a large number of searches in that space. Know where to rank for what in your niche,

Picture This

Ah, photos. They tell a story, but you need to be careful here. Too high of resolution photos will take too long to load. Paginated slideshows, once meant to be traffic boosters are just the opposite now. Captions are not always visible on certain devices, so make sure it is clear what the photo is.

Speaking of clear, remember the photo will be smaller on a smaller screen, so make sure what you want to be seen can be see, and that the photo is arranged to focus the user’s attention where you want it.

Not good with photos? Take a class. Learn. The way your photos appear matter more on mobile devices than they ever have before.

Mobile is here to say, and while there is some debate about voice first devices, and whether screens will get larger or smaller in the future, mobile search will matter for a long time either way. You need to structure your content marketing accordingly, now, before your competition gets ahead of you and beats you to the winner’s circle.