4 Tips For Your Mobile SEO Strategy

I share four fundamental questions that will help you assess the best alternatives to start taking mobile search into consideration for your site.

Google has recently published a set of official developers resources and recommendations to build smartphone optimized sites. Nonetheless, from a strategic perspective you also need to identify which are the best options according to your target market, present users, and site characteristics.
I hope it’s helpful and if you have any doubts or feedback, please let me know, I look forward for your comments.

Video Transcription

Hello SEOmoz fans. My name is Aleyda Solis, @aleyda on Twitter. It's a pleasure to be here with you today, and I would like to show you four tips specifically about your mobile SEO strategy, which is a very hot topic nowadays.

The idea is to really answer some questions that can arise in the beginning of the process. The first question that you may have is how many mobile users you have and how they have found you, because really what you want is to, of course, be able to optimize your site and to be reachable to those specific mobile users that your specific site has.

Use Google Analytics. Go to the audience mobile devices section of your Google Analytics, and you will find there the operating system, the provider, also the resolutions, and the type of handhelds that your users are having when they are browsing to your site.

Also, you can configure an advanced segment in Google Analytics for the organic traffic, and you can specify to only see the specific mobile traffic, which are the pages and keywords and the conversions that get generated from this mobile organic traffic that comes to your site so you can understand better the behavior of that user, which are the topics and the pages and the information that they really consume.

At the beginning, sometimes, maybe you can identify that it's not all of your site that is really attractive to the mobile users, that you have some specific offer that you really want to promote to them. That is why it's very important that you identify first, at the beginning.

Also, use Google Webmaster Tools. Google Webmaster Tools has a filter where you can see only the mobile search for keywords and pages impressions. So you can see how is your site already behaving on the SERPs for mobile users.

Finally, always, the Google Keyword tool. Remember the typical Google keyword tool that we use? There is a setting there where you can specify that you only want information for smartphone searches. Do it so you can see also: How does that match with the traffic you already have for your types of products or services?
For example, you can see that maybe the traffic that you are getting is not even near the possibilities and the volume that there is already going for mobile users for your type of product or services, and there's a lot of room to grow or a lot of possibilities in that area. That's another good tip.

Finally, you already know your user behavior, what type of user do you have from smartphones. So you want to move to the next question that usually arises: How does your site look from those mobile devices?

Now, you know that you have those users that they are using the iPhone or maybe a BlackBerry, Simian, whatever. How does your site look from those devices? You can use some tools. Screenfly is specifically good to see the different resolutions, how your site looks from the different resolutions on the different smartphones, tablets, mobile phones. Google Master Tools also has a feature named Fetch as Googlebot. You can set the smartphone option so you can see how the bot is really looking at your code, verify the code that they are really getting from your site, and eliminate any possibility of redirections that you may have at the beginning of something.

You can also use the add-on from Firefox, use their agents feature. You can switch to mobile or smartphone user agent. This relays how your site is also reachable from those type of devices easily.
So, now you know how your site looks. You may have problems with those types of users that can use certain types of smartphones, and maybe you need to improve a little bit how your site looks in them. Okay. That's the first thing to do.

Then the next question is: What type of mobile web is better for you?
Because of the analytics, okay, I know that I have a lot of possibilities. I know that my site is not really attractive for this type of device. But that doesn't mean that you are going to start from scratch doing whatever to make your site friendly. No. You need to identify which is the best strategy for you according to your type of site. Okay?

So the first site -- and this is the recommendation from Google and it's very, very popular nowadays also from a development perspective -- it's the responsive website. This is the ideal situation, also, if you have the same content that you want to deliver for the mobile and the desktop user. You have the flexibility to implement. You have a good CMS or you have development resources that may facilitate the implementation, but let's say that maybe you cannot change something on your site or you have a not flexible CMS and you have just switched six months ago. Maybe you have problems there to implement it. Right? This is, of course, the best for smartphone users or tablet users.

If you have a feature phone base of users that you have identified before, maybe it's not the ideal, because you will have more problems to make this site that is good for desktop also good for a feature phone.
So the responsiveness, you ask a question for this, but then, if some of those different criteria that I have discussed before are not met, you might consider the dynamic serving in the same URL. This is more suitable for those sites that want to really offer a different type of content, produce a type of users. Remember that a lot of mobile users are also users that are looking for local type of searches that you may verify before with a keyword tool or Google Analytics, but that means that maybe, for those type of users, you want to provide some specific offer, a coupon, something different, maybe references to go walk into your next store, a different type of content than for the typical desktop user. Right? So this will be the alternative.

If you cannot implement responsive, I have talked before, if you have feature phone users, then you will do dynamic serving in the same URL. That means that you will be at a parallel site, but this site or this content will be shown through the same URL. The thing is to implement the user agent detection so instead of showing one version of the content, you will show the other.

If you, for some reason, have no other possibility to implement this, then you will move to the parallel site in an "m" subdomain. This means that you will build off a parallel site, but it won't be shown on the same URL as the previous option. Then you will need to add some text or rel=alternate tag to refer user from the desktop version to the mobile one. Also, vice versa, with a canonical tag. So, like this, you won't have any content duplication problems.

At the end of the day, this is not optimal because this means that the crawler, Google, will need to really identify much more content, and you will give much more work to the crawler. It won't be as neat as to have just one URL for everything. You will need to work more also to improve the popularity of this other parallel site because you don't have the same URL for everything. So it's not the ideal situation really.
The fourth question that might arise is: How can Google find my mobile site now, if it is not responsive? Of course, if it's responsive, it's the exact same content that will be shown to the desktop user as to the mobile one.
So what will happen in this situation? For example, you have a parallel in a "m" subdomain. You will need to generate a mobile sitemap and upload it through Google Webmaster Tools. Of course, links, it is always a good practice to link between one version and another of the site if you're using different URLs. Of course, good dynamic serving. If you're using the dynamic server with the same URL, sometimes it's not well-configured.

At the end of the day, the Google bot doesn't realize that there's another version there hidden somewhere. This is not cloaking because you will actually show the exact same information not only to the mobile bot, but also to the mobile user. As long as the user and the bot see the same thing, it's not cloaking, really, but you need to verify that it's well-

configured. That's why it's very important that you check the feature on Google master tools and see if the mobile Google bot user agent is really seeing the code that you want.

So, these are the most difficult questions that arise when you are developing your mobile SEO strategy. I hope that these are of use for you now that this is a very hot topic. You verify and validate first if it has a sense to enable these type of sites right now for you. If it does, where are the best options to do it?
Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Government SEO is Broken

The federal government, under the leadership of President Obama and Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel, has launched a wide-ranging rethinking and consolidation of federal websites, domains, and databases. The goal: to broaden access to government information and services, incorporate mobile access, and reduce waste and overlap in websites and domains.

This is a pretty big initiative. One problem: there is a missing element that could hinder the effort - consideration for how users search for and find government service online – where's the search engine optimization (SEO)?

Improving Transparency and Accessibility to Government Services with SEO

Search engines are often the first step in the user experience, the place people go to find a government form, plan a trip to a national park, or get informed at government issues.

By including SEO - the set of best practices around helping web content appear in search results - government can insure their services, activities, and positions are issues are front and center in the everyday lives of the public.

The Challenge of Size

A recent study by the. Gov. Reform Task Force put the federal digital presence at more than 1,400 domains and 11,000 websites run by 56 agencies. The cost alone of managing this scale may be reason enough to consolidate and rationalize, but a hidden cost is the complexity imposed on citizens who need to navigate the mass of government data to find what they need.

Each negative or frustrating online experience contributes to the public perception that government is too large, unresponsive, and indifferent to the needs of its diverse set of stakeholders.

But what if users were able to quickly and easily connect to government directly from the search engines with a minimum of clicks? Instead of visiting a government agency home page, navigating the site, and finally finding the information they need? What if agency activities and perspectives were highly visible and above private sector sites in the search results?

Direct access to government services and information via search is in many ways an optimal user experience. This experience arises when SEO and sound technical management combine to treat every government web page as a potential landing page – a home page in its own right for users entering the site via search.

The Special Position of Government Sites in Search Engines

Government sites are inherently privileged in the world of search. They use the restricted .gov top-level domain, they tend to have many inbound links from other authoritative sites, and they are typically well established, indexable, and content-rich – all prized elements in the eyes of the search engine ranking algorithms.

Given this pedigree, government sites can potentially rank for practically any relevant keyword they wish with basic SEO - on-page optimization and sound linking practices.

Sound SEO fundamentals consists of the following tactics for all content (URLs, images, videos) relevant to search engine users:

1. A strong keyword focus: The content has a specific query for which it is designed to rank well for in search results.
2. The use of keyword-rich Meta data: Page title and meta description tags.
3. The use of keyword-rich URLs.
4. A keyword-rich inbound link / internal navigation profile: Pages linking to the content use keywords as anchor text.

These critical elements ensure that search engines understand the keyword focus of the page. Get these factors right, and any given government URL has a decent chance or ranking well.

Government Agencies & Search Keyword Strategy

Every government agency should understand, monitor, and actively seek to shape its digital presence around mission-critical keywords.

Given the advantages government agencies have in the ranking algorithms, it’s likely that agencies will have top ranking for core keywords - "brand" terms like the agency name, and closely-related terms like their areas of focus, regulation, and oversight. Other keywords will be more difficult to rank for, and are often the most important for the long-term future of the agency.

Digital content – web pages, videos, press releases – can be created or retro-fitted to rank well for each keyword or keyword cluster in the keyword strategy, insuring full visibility for the agency and its overall objectives.

Creating a Federal Government Agency Keyword Strategy

In order to implement SEO, a sound keyword strategy must be developed so that specific keywords can be mapped to content. Best practice involve researching keywords, starting with the most highly relevant core terms around brand or organization names, and then moving further out to include potential keywords around activities, oversight, and finally related news or issue keywords.

Taking the Department of Justice as an example, a well-crafted search keyword strategy might look like the following - this is just an excerpt of what would be a list with potentially hundreds of search keywords:

The Department of Justice keyword strategy should include small set of core or "brand" terms, a larger set of critical oversight keywords for the department area of focus, and a wide-ranging set of relevant issue keywords for which the agency is a stakeholder and participant in the wider debate.

Using Search to Enter the Public Discussion

Government agencies are big players in the ongoing shaping of American society. From setting regulation to informing the public, there is always a set of perspectives that agencies are seeking to disseminate.

Search can play a huge part in making sure government views and information makes it into the ongoing public discussion. Optimized government websites that rank well in the engines insure that talking points and government resources are front and center when people go to the search engines to get informed about a given topic.

The Department of Transportation: Entering the Distracted Driving Debate

For more than three years the Department of Transportation has been working to reduce the dangerous trend of distracted driving – the practice of texting, talking on phones, checking email when you should be driving. The campaign consists of video spots, banner ads, and the www.distraction.gov website.

While the DOT site ranks on page one of the Google results, it is unfortunately, ‘below the fold’ requiring the user to scroll down on most screens. As seen in the screenshot below, non-government sites rank about the DOJ campaign site, as do image results, news results, and book results. What is the chance that users will make their way through the crowded page to the distraction.gov site?

Implementing SEO for the distraction.gov site, by aligning press releases, linking from DOJ sites, and on-page content with a keyword strategy, would insure that DOJ content reaches the greatest possible audience.

Furthermore, the site is potentially targeted to the "wrong" keyword if the goal is to reach as many people as possible. Distraction.gov is targeted to the phrase "distracted driving" which, while perhaps the technically accurate way to describe the problem, has much less query volume than the phrase "texting while driving", a phrase that could reach almost 5 times the number of potential searchers.

How to Handle Government Domain Consolidation

A key goal in the efforts to streamline and improve the government web presence is to reduce the number of .gov domains. While this makes a great deal of sense, it carries risks from a search engine perspective because the inbound links and search engine equity can be lost when a domain is expired or clumsily redirected. In other words, when the domain goes away, users may be impacted.

Available tools such as Google Webmaster Tools, Majestic SEO, and SEOMoz.com provide information on inbound linking for any live domain. Government agencies in the process of consolidating domains can check the inbound links for each domain on the consolidation list.

Domains with significant inbound links can be carefully redirected via server 301 redirects to point to the best-fit URL on retained domains. This insures that the new domain inherits the equity acquired by the old domains, helping it rank well in search results and by extension insuring users can find what the need post-consolidation.

Empowering State and Local Governments

While this post focuses on using SEO to benefit the agenda of the federal government, the importance of applying SEO is even greater at the state and local or city level. This is because most of the government services people use on a day-to-day basis are provided by state and local agencies.

A federal government that understands and implements good SEO can function as a role model to encourage partners at the local and state level to consider how users interact with search and to ensure that their information and services can be easily found.

Creating a More Transparent, Accessible & Impactful Government via Search

Search plays a series of critical roles in the interplay between government and the people. It’s a first step in the search for government services, to best way to find government data, and a key way people get informed and shape options about issues impacted by government policies and decisions.

If the federal government is serious about moving toward a more accessible and effective tomorrow, building-in SEO competency is a crucial step on the journey.

Capable SEO, digital agencies, and technology consultants that understand the issues and approaches to implementing enterprise SEO are well positioned to sell in this crucial service to federal, state, and local governments.

Webmaster tool Is Backbone of Every Website

Google has just recently announced via a blog post in its Webmaster Central Blog that is has rolled out new Crawl Error alerts. 

“Since Googlebot regularly visits your site, we know when your site exhibits connectivity issues or suddenly spikes in pages returning HTTP error response codes (e.g. 404 File Not Found, 403 Forbidden, 503 Service Unavailable, etc). If your site is timing out or is exhibiting systemic errors when accessed by Googlebot, other visitors to your site might be having the same problem!” Google posted.

So, according to Google, they will send alerts to webmasters or site owners when they see such errors. These alerts will be in the form of messages in the Webmaster Tools Message Center that will let you know what they have detected.

Previously, you can only receive alerts via Webmaster Tools when your site is experiencing some serious issues. Now, with this latest update, crawl Error alerts will be sent by Google via Webmaster Tools as well as to your email (if you set it up to forward to email) when you get crawl errors.

“Hopefully, given this increased communication, you can fix potential issues that may otherwise impact your site’s visitors or your site’s presence in search,” Google further posted.

Google will now send you alerts for both site wide and page specific issues.

Site Error Alerts for Major Site-Wide Problems

• DNS server is down or misconfigured

• web server itself is firewalled off

• web server is declining connections from Googlebot

• web server is overloaded or down

• robots.txt file of your site is inaccessible

URL Error Alerts for Less Critical Issues

• Server error

• Soft 404

• Access denied

• Not found

• Not followed

This latest update on Google Webmaster Tools is another great way for webmasters or SEO Experts to keep them more informed about the state of their site.