SEO TIPS: IS YOUR BLOG MOBILE FRIENDLY?

It has been a while since my last SEO tips post, but I am finally back with another one. This time I am broaching the subject of mobile friendly websites and whether your blog is set up to be mobile user friendly. Below are my top tips / checks to make sure that your blog is mobile friendly…

Setting Your Blog Up For SEO

As most of you will know, making sure that you blog is as SEO friendly as possible – i.e. Search Engine and User Friendly – means that you will have more success in ranking for relevant keywords and that your blog will be more visible in search engine results, ultimately leading to an increase in website traffic. What you wouldn’t want to find is that your website has been penalised by Google, especially if it was for an issue that you were unaware of or not in ‘the know’ about.

Google’s Mobile Friendly Update

With more people using mobile devices as their first point for surfing the web or for ‘Googling’ something, it is important to make sure that you website or blog is responsive. Google rolled out their mobile friendly update back on the 21st of April, so if you have noticed a dip in traffic or rankings in the SERPs, then your website or blog may have been affected by this.

What Factors Does the Mobile Friendly Update Affect?

The Mobile Friendly update is to make sure that users of your site are getting the best experience possible and that they don’t have any issues when on your blog. For example, if the text is too small to read or they cannot navigate around your site easily. The Mobile Friendly update is said to affect only mobile web searches (meaning that a Google search from a desktop computer should not be affected by this), will affect all languages globally and apply to each individual page and not your whole site. So say for example, you had a page on shoes that wasn’t mobile friendly, but the rest of your site was, then only your shoes page would be affected in mobile search and vice versa.

Is Your Blog Mobile Friendly?

The quickest way that you can check whether your blog is mobile friendly is by using Google’s mobile friendly test here. This tool will tell you whether or not your blog is mobile friendly / responsive and will also highlight areas that are causing issues and show you a preview of how your website looks on mobile devices.

An Easy Way To Make A Blog Mobile Friendly on Blogger

Using blogger as a CMS system myself, the easiest way to make sure your blog is mobile friendly is by selecting the ‘Template’ option in the menu bar and making sure that your mobile template is selected to show on mobile devices. Easy Peasy! I am pretty sure that WordPress will more than likely have a similar option aswell, or any different CMS that you are using to manage your blog (but don’t quote me on that!)

Choosing a Mobile Responsive Blog Template / Design

If you do not have this simple option above, then you will want to make sure that you have a responsive website / blog design. By responsive, I mean that when the screen size of a gadget viewing your website changes, your blog automatically adapts to be the best fit and view for that screen size. If you would like to purchase a responsive blog template, but you don’t want to have to shell out a load of cash for a developer to create on for you. You can buy pre-made responsive designs from Etsy here.

After following the above steps you should find that your blog is now mobile friendly! If you have any questions on this or any other SEO topic, leave me a comment below or drop me a tweet to @CharlotteLewis_ and if you have found this helpful and would like me to incorporate more regular SEO updates on my blog, then please let me know and I can try to intertwine my day job experience for you here on a more regular basis.

Whilst we are on the topic of mobiles, above is my new X Doria iPhone 6 case (if you were wondering), which you can shop here. Thanks for reading and I hope you are having a fabulous week so far!

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