Best Practices for Mobile SEO

In 2025, the number of mobile users worldwide is projected to reach 7.49 billion. That’s a ton of website traffic! Around half of Google searches are done on mobile devices so it’s more than likely that your customers (and potential customers) are looking for your products or services while they’re on the go. And this is where mobile SEO is essential.

Here, we explore the importance of mobile SEO and best practices that SEO agencies follow.

What Is Mobile SEO and why is it important?

Mobile SEO involves optimising your content, site design and more to achieve a better ranking for your web pages in search engine results pages (SERPs). This is to ensure flawless viewing on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. And mobile SEO plays a huge role in your overall SEO strategy.

Currently, over 60% of website traffic comes from mobile devices. The percentage of people accessing the internet via mobile devices has increased significantly year after year since 2017. And these activities include product research. A whopping 77% of shoppers use a mobile device to search for products before buying them. In-store shoppers will frequently research products and pricing on their smartphones while they are in the store. So it’s crucial that your website is optimised for mobile devices in order to be found.

Mobile SEO will help your website improve organic traffic – traffic coming to your site from search results. Google uses mobile-first indexing for almost every site, meaning that Google’s web crawler prioritises indexing the mobile version of a website’s content (over the desktop counterpart) to inform rankings. This makes it essential for your site to be configured for mobile by an expert web developer.

Benefits of Mobile SEO

Responsive on all devices

With so many users making searches on their phones, you need a website that is capable of adapting its content based on the device it is being viewed on. Since websites are generally created for desktop users, it’s important to ensure that the layout and design is optimised for mobile as well.

Loads your website quickly

Your web users won’t be stuck waiting for your web pages to load which adds to an enjoyable user experience. Site speed is super important and it’s recommended that your website loads in under three seconds. Otherwise, you run the risk of users clicking off your site.

Decreases website bounce rate

Since your website has a responsive design and loads quickly, users are less likely to get frustrated and leave your site. Mobile SEO keeps users on your site for longer, increasing the chances of them completing one of your desired goals – signing up for a newsletter, contacting you or making a purchase.

Improves mobile conversions

When your website is mobile-friendly, it is easy for users to click your call-to-action buttons, fill out a form or click on your phone number. Your ultimate goal is to convert your website user into a customer. And mobile SEO makes your site conversion-friendly for users.

Best practices for mobile optimisation

Create mobile-friendly content

Use short paragraphs that are readable on mobile.
Keep introductions short and get to your main point quickly.
Don’t be afraid of whitespace in web design.

Use structure data on your mobile website

Add schema markup – the code that represents data for search engines to understand it. This turns your normal SERP snippets into rich snippets (results with extra information displayed).

Source: Semrush

Optimise mobile site speed for better UX

Check your mobile site’s speed – use Google tools like PageSpeed Insights or get a comprehensive SEO website audit.
Make necessary changes and improvements from your audit or hire an expert to optimise your site speed.

Optimise title tags and meta descriptions for mobile SERPs

Title tags: keep it between 50 and 60 characters, target one primary keyword, make each page title unique.
Meta descriptions: summarise your page’s content in under 120 characters and include your primary keyword and CTA.

Compare desktop vs. mobile site SEO performance

Use Google Analytics to compare how your pages are performing on desktop vs. mobile.
Check for pages that are getting a lot of desktop traffic compared to mobile traffic and make sure they are well-optimised for mobile.