Back in the day, eCommerce stores were built for desktops and then optimised for mobiles. However, nowadays, this has changed.
Now, people are optimising for mobile experience first due to Google’s transition to mobile-first indexing in 2023.
Google’s Mobile-First Indexing
In 2016, Google announced the shift from desktop to mobile-first indexing. It wasn’t until May 2023, however, that all sites moved over to mobile-first indexing. Now, Google uses the mobile version of your site to crawl, index, and rank your web pages.
It’s important to note, however, that not all search engines are going the mobile-first route. A representative from Bing said that they will not be implementing a separate mobile index, they’ll maintain a single index optimised for mobile and desktop.
Why Did Google Move Desktop to Mobile- First Indexing?
Well, because of consumer preferences. It’s changed a lot. People use their phones for pretty much everything nowadays; many people even use their smartphones as their desktops.
Research shows that people check their phones around 58 times a day and spend an average of 3 hours and 15 minutes daily on their phones.
Just think about that for a moment. 3 hours and 15 minutes a day. That’s almost 49.5 days a year, or even scarier, from the age of 13 to 80, 9 years and 1 month.
Google, the largest search engine, obviously knows about this trend. They predicted it years ago, even before the huge smartphone boom.
And this is the very reason they made the switch from desktop to mobile-first indexing. It’s just where the world is moving to.
It doesn’t mean, however, that your website shouldn’t be optimised for desktops. It still should. People still use desktops, and if you have a quality experience on all devices, you’ll be rewarded.
5 Types of Mobile Web Development
To achieve a mobile-first website, eCommerce shop owners have various avenues.
Typically, these include the following five:
|
Type |
Description |
|
Subdirectories and subdomains |
Separate mobile version, often auto-generated |
|
Responsive design |
Fluid/stackable grid pattern, content restacks and resizes |
|
Responsive with Adaptive Logic |
Customizes features for mobile users with client-side JavaScript |
|
Fully dynamic web design |
Different content served to desktop and mobile users via server-side logic |
|
Single Page Application (SPA) |
Uses JavaScript frameworks (e.g., Angular.js, React.js) for dynamic content loading |
7 Essential Factors of Mobile SEO for eCommerce
You're behind schedule if you aren’t already optimising an eCommerce store for mobile. If that’s you, crack on with the below immediately.1. Understand Google's mobile-first indexing.
By understanding mobile-first indexing, you’ll have a much better chance at improving your website's mobile friendliness.
Mobile-first indexing, by definition, means the mobile version of your website will be the baseline of how Google crawls, indexes, and ranks your web pages.
The bot used for this is the Smartphone Googlebot. Therefore, just ensure that it isn’t blocked by robots.txt or anything like that.
Google suggests using one of three ways to make a mobile-friendly eCommerce site.
- Responsive: Responsive web design
- Dynamic Serving: Responsive with adaptive logic or fully dynamic web design
- Separate URL: Subdirectories and subdomains
Remember, though Google is now following mobile-first indexing, desktop users shouldn’t be ignored. People still use desktops, and providing a good user experience for all users will help boost your rankings.
3. Improve mobile site speed for better performance.
Since 2010, website speed has been a ranking factor. And honestly, nothing has changed since then. Faster websites rank better than slower websites.The reason for this is that fast websites provide a better user experience. This doesn’t only benefit search engines, either, your eCommerce site can benefit massively.
A Google article written in 2020 showed users the benefits of improving mobile site speed for eCommerce SEO. Turns out:
Technical SEO for eCommerce is the main driver for mobile speed. It involves fixing redirects, enabling compression, improving server response time, leveraging browser caching, optimising images, optimising CCS delivery, removing render-blocking JavaScript, etc.
4. Prioritise mobile-friendly usability
You can’t just focus on building authority and relevance as part of your eCommerce SEO strategy. You also need to make your website usable for mobile devices.Before launching your website, ensure it works seamlessly on mobile. Play around with it yourself, send it to your friends and family for their option, or, if you want, pay a website tester.
Whatever you do, you need to see whether it’s easy to access and navigate your website on different mobile devices. Not only this, all content should be readable, links should be easy to click, buttons should be large enough, etc.
While improvising your online visibility via mobile SEO, just think about the user immensely. Pop into their shoes and develop a website that’ll fulfil their needs, plus more.
5. Implement structured data for better search visibility.
Structured data or schema is used for search engines to understand the content of the page more easily.Generally, this is an SEO optimisation technique for all online stores, not just mobile SEO. Regardless, you should be using it.
Plus, it gives you a chance to get more SEO real estate, as this information can then be passed onto the SERPs.
Reference: Example of product and review schema
There are a load of different types of markups you can use. The most popular include:
Just ensure that you use it properly. There are plenty of structured data validator tools. Two good options are Google’s Structured Data Tester and Schema Validator. Run it through these before uploading the code onto your website.
6. Focus on core SEO principles.
Mobile SEO is important for search engine ranking for eCommerce, without question. However, you can’t forget about the core SEO principles.
Alongside the best mobile SEO practices, you should also ensure:
- Proper keyword research
- Correct keyword placement (meta tags, H1s, content, etc.)
- High-quality content is on your website
- To get natural backlinks from high-authority sites
These are the core fundamentals of a quality website thriving with SEO. If you’re able to optimise these areas while focusing on mobile SEO, your website will quickly start generating more traffic.
7. Get ready for the rise of voice search.
Voice search is becoming more and more popular, and it will, guaranteed, be a big part of mobile SEO one day.Back in 2016, Google performed some heavy research, suggesting that 20% of searches on the Google App are now done by voice. This is likely higher now.
Anyways, reportedly, there are 8,323,333,333 Google searches a day. 20% of this is 1,664,666,666.6. Or, in other words, a hell of a lot.
To gain access to this traffic, eCommerce shop owners will need to:
- Target Voice Search Keywords: Use long-tail, question-based keywords that reflect natural speech.
- Analyse Search Results: Align content to feature snippets and the “People Also Ask” sections of the SERPs.
- Optimise Existing Content: Improve readability, add FAQS, use schema markup, and provide clear, concise answers.
- Enhance Technical SEO: Improve page speed, ensure proper mobile SEO, and use HTTPS (SSL certificates).
- Strength Local SEO: Optimise your Google Business Profile, list in local directories, and target local keywords.
Final Word
Mobile SEO used to be looked at as an advanced SEO technique for eCommerce. However, with a platform like Shopify offering completely responsive templates, it’s accessible for everyone.If, for whatever reason, your website doesn’t follow the best practices for mobile SEO for eCommerce, do it now. You’ll see measurable results due to crawlers having a better experience on your website. We can help get it sorted.
