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
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Smartphone Share Of Organic Searches is 23%
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Smartphone share of Organic Searches
Source: BrightEdge Data Cube May 2014
As of April 2014, Smartphone share of organic searches is
23% and
growing over
50% a year
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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
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There is a BIG Difference in Smartphone V Desktop Rank
62% of
keywords have different ranks
Source: BrightEdge Data Cube May 2014
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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”
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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
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Example of Dynamic Approach
HTML ≠
www.zillow.com/columbia-sc/ www.zillow.com/columbia-sc/
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Example of Separate Approach
www.1800flowers.com/valentinesday m.www.1800flowers.com/valentinesday ≠
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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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-0.8
-0.6
-0.4
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Responsive Dynamic Separate
Average difference between desktop and mobile ranks
SMX Advanced Seattle | June 11 – 12, 2014 #SMXAdvanced
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.”
SMX Advanced Seattle | June 11 – 12, 2014 #SMXAdvanced
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.
Source: BrightEdge Data Cube May 2014
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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%
Source: BrightEdge Data Cube May 2014
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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
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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.
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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
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Example of incorrect robots.txt
This is very bad. From m.[redacted-domain].com
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BrightEdge Data Shows non-compliant sites result in a lower rank by almost
2 positions
As Expected, Non-Compliant Sites do not Rank Well
Source: BrightEdge Data Cube May 2014
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This Results in Loss of Mobile Traffic
68% lost Smartphone opportunity
Source: BrightEdge Data Cube May 2014
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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.
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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
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Takeaways
SMX Advanced Seattle | June 11 – 12, 2014 #SMXAdvanced
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
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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.
SMX Advanced Seattle | June 11 – 12, 2014 #SMXAdvanced
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
SMX Advanced Seattle | June 11 – 12, 2014 #SMXAdvanced
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
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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
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