2018 has been a year of many vast breakthroughs in the technology world: 3D metal printing, genetic fortune telling and perfect online privacy, to name but a few. However, something else happened in 2018 that, on the face of it, doesn’t sound like a big deal: 2018 is the year that saw the balance between the volume of search traffic between mobile and desktop tip in the favor of the mobile phone. This has huge implications for all online business owners – not optimizing for mobile in 2019 will put you at a serious disadvantage to both your competition and your Google search rankings and traffic. Online traffic, rankings, and engagement are three of the most important aspects to an online business in 2019 and if you want to ensure that you either stay ahead or overtake your rivals in this new era of mobile phone searches then you should consider several different things for your online business in 2019.
IMAGE: PEXELS
Google Loves Mobile Phones
When it comes to traffic and engagement on the internet, nobody knows better than Google. Google is, of course, the Silicon Valley colossus that sits atop the internet throne. The front page of Google is considered to be the Holy Grail by digital marketers and Google was amongst the first to cater towards the ever-increasing number of searches generated by mobile phone devices.
Where mobile optimization was once an added bonus for a website to have, in 2019 it is imperative to have a fully optimized mobile phone version of your website. Mobile optimization is simply the process of ensuring that visitors who visit your site from a mobile device have an experience especially optimized for the device.
There are still many websites that are not designed to account for different screen sizes and load times so optimizing your online business for mobile phone searches could ensure that you get ahead of your competitors who are still not aware of the importance of mobile phone traffic. But remember to do your research, certain types of search queries are still predominantly performed on desktop – so keep an eye on the traffic that your website is generating.
Mobile Phone Page Load Speed
Due to issues such as connectivity and hardware, page speed is more important for mobile users than desktop users. Page speed can be affected by things such as un-optimized images and redirects. “Mobile phone traffic is key for us”, says Pierre Portelli from EsportsOnly.
“Around 45% of our audience visit our website using their mobile phones, so it quickly became obvious to us that we needed to optimize the site for mobile users. When optimizing, page loading speed is one of the main factors that we take into consideration.”
In July 2018, the Google speed update meant that for the first time, mobile page speed became a ranking factor in Google’s mobile search results. However, one of the upmost important things when it comes to ranking well on mobile phone searches is still content. “Just like an engine with no wheels, SEO with no content is a shiny machine that goes nowhere” says Search Engine Land, one of the key voices when it comes to search engine optimization. Meaning that a page that loads super quickly is irrelevant to Google if the content on the page is weak.
Content Is Still Key
As previously mentioned, when it comes to optimizing your website to cater to mobile phone visitors, the quality of your content is still the main driving force as to whether your traffic, ranking, and engagement levels are on an upward trend or a downward one. Having content that is highly knowledgeable as well as highly sharable should always be well-valued by Google so you should never sacrifice the content on your website.
Remember, content is not just the words on your page. It is also images, videos, and anything else that makes the page sparkle and come to life.
Plan For The Future: Trend Monitoring
“One of the most powerful ways to boost your blog traffic and leads is to monitor and cover trends”, says Ann Smarty from Blogging Wizard. “Being among the first to share the news with your social media listeners will pay off fast. And don’t be afraid of spreading link love. Tag everyone you linked to in social media updates too.”
In 2019, editors and web marketers will need to pay close attention to trends and changes that could affect the mobile friendliness of their website. If you are one of these people, staying up-to-date by reading SEO and marketing journals is highly recommended. If you are a bit of a risk taker, it could pay-off to try out different things if you think that they are likely to pay-off in the future.
Many web designers and marketers were quick to realize that 2018 was set to become the year of the mobile phone and it is for this reason why most segments have now switched to building their websites for mobile phones first and desktops second. And this trend is not a phase. It is more likely than not that more sophisticated mobile and tablet devices are just around the corner ensuring that desktop traffic becomes ever more obsolete. Don’t be surprised to see mobile dominate the future of global search engine internet traffic.
If you are interested in even more technology-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels then we have a lot to choose from.
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