[Estimated read time: 9 minutes]
Note: this post is based on a recent presentation I gave at LearnInbound Dublin. You can find the slides here.
Mobile search as a topic has changed a lot over the past few years. When I first started looking at this, back in 2012, there was already a lot of discussion happening around the topic of mobile. And back then, the big question everyone was asking was, “what should my mobile strategy be?”
Even then, things were shifting. At one of my early conference presentations on the topic, I made the point that we should stop thinking about a “mobile strategy” as different from our web strategy, because mobile technology was becoming simply another way to access the Internet. This isn’t surprising; after all, global purchases of smartphones are increasing at an exponential rate:
And because of this, the questions we’re asking have changed.
- We used to ask whether we needed a separate mobile site (and it was around this time that Google really began to encourage the use of responsive design), whereas now “mobile-friendliness” often seems to be used interchangeably with “responsive.” (This is, of course, a whole other topic!)
- We used to worry about treating mobile users differently because we thought they were always “on the go,” whereas now we realize that most people use mobile devices all the time, and in fact most of the time these devices are used even when other options are available, such as at home or at work. And most recently, Google have started speaking in terms of “micro-moments,” the various use cases of search: Do-Go-Know-Buy, which apply equally to mobile users as to desktop.
- And we used to talk a lot about apps, and about whether to use an HTML web app vs a native app, how hard it was for the average app to stand out from all the noise in the app store, and about app store optimization (ASO) harking back to the old days of SEO, with its emphasis on keywords for ranking. Now, we talk about the other ways in which people can use and discover our apps — such as app indexation and app streaming.
This shift is hardly surprising, when you consider that, in 2015, 52% of UK internet users have stated that mobile is their “preferred way to access the web” — up from only 24% in 2013. This means the number of people who view mobile as their primary web device has doubled in just 2 years, and we have every reason to believe that this trend with continue.
It just makes sense, because (as Benedict Evans recently wrote), “it’s actually the PC that has the limited, basic, cut-down version of the Internet...it only has the web.”
Whereas our mobile devices have so much more information to draw on (photos, geolocation, friends, physical movement) and greater interactivity: with the external world (through technology like beacons), with you when you’re not using it (through notifications), and with your personal identity (because a phone is always signed-in and it is almost always an individual device rather than a shared one).
So what are the key ways in which we're seeing this shift in user behavior change our approach to SEO?
To answer that question, I’d like to focus on four key areas in which Google seems to be shifting its approach to mobile search, and some things we can do about it:
- Mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor
- Site speed and page load times
- Mobile-first design of SERPs
- App integration with web search
Mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor
In 2015, when Google first rolled out the Mobile-Friendliness Update (or “Mobilegeddon” as it was nicknamed), the impact was felt in two ways. More directly, by those sites which were impacted by the rollout — some sites lost up to 35% of their mobile rankings within the 1st month after the rollout — and indirectly, by the move towards mobile-friendliness in the lead up to the update. Google announced that they saw a 4.7% increase in the number of mobile-friendly sites in the two months between announcing that the update was coming and when it actually rolled out.
A new version of the update has recently rolled out, so we can expect to see further impact from this in the next few months.
What should we do about it?
The key action here is to ensure that your site passes the mobile-friendly test, and to check Google Search Console reports for mobile-specific errors.
Site speed and page load times
Hand in hand with the focus on mobile-friendliness, there is also a push towards improving site speed and page load times. This is particularly noticeable on editorial sites, where an ad-revenue business model leads to lots of different elements required to load a page, despite the actual content being fairly lightweight.
Google are not the only ones addressing this issue: Facebook Instant Articles and Apple Newsstand both use in-app versions of content pages to speed up the loading process, and some publishers have also created their own native apps to help solve this.
Google’s solution to this is their Accelerated Mobile Pages Project (AMP), which allows publishers and creators of editorial content to build versions of their pages with stripped-back, skeleton HTML, following a set of rules which guarantee speed and force distribution (an important thing to be aware of if you choose to utilize this approach).
This set of rules allows the page to:
- load quickly (speed), and
- be cached by Google and served directly in the SERP (distribution).
Example (L–R): primary URL, AMP version on primary website, and AMP version cached by Google.
What should we do about it?
The first step is to decide whether AMP is relevant for you.
You should use AMP if:
- Google News is an important traffic source for you;
- You make a lot of content, particularly editorial content;
- You want wider distribution of your content;
- You have a high proportion of mobile traffic.
If this is a good approach for you, you can learn more about how to implement it here.
Mobile-first design of SERPs
This third key area is around Google making desktop search look and feel more like mobile search.
There are two major ways that this has happened:
1. The card-style layout, which makes the distribution of content easier on a variety of different screen sizes and types:
2. And the move to get rid of the sidebar ads on desktop search in favor of more ads at the top of the page (on “highly commercial” searches):
“Old” Google desktop SERP
“New” Google desktop SERP without sidebar ads
What should we do about it?
There’s not a huge amount that can be done to address this trend head-on. However, it’s important to ensure that, for these “highly commercial” SERPs, you are taking account of the changing SERP layout in your tracking and reporting.
In addition, you may want to shift some of your focus towards building out your top-of-funnel search strategy, to target less commercial keywords where you will have fewer paid ads to compete with.
App integration with web search
Google needs to find a way to integrate app content with the rest of the web, or they risk becoming irrelevant. The “walled garden” effect from having apps on your phone’s home screen, coupled with recent stats which show that around 85% of users’ time on their mobile devices is spent on apps rather than on the mobile web, means that apps present a very real threat to Google continuing to act as an intermediary between users and content discovery.
The solution for Google is to start indexing and serving app content in the web search results, and this is what they are trying to do with their work around app indexation and app streaming.
App indexation involves setting up your app so that the same https:// web link can be used to link to a page on your desktop site, its mobile version (responsive design or dynamic serving), and the equivalent content inside your app (deep linking). This allows Google to serve the most relevant version based on the context which they have around that particular user and how they prefer to use the web.
Image credit: https://searchengineland.com/app-indexing-matters-f...
In the longer-term, they seem to be moving towards the option of “app streaming,” which would allow a user to access app content without having the app installed on their device. The content would instead be served via Google search interface, again firmly positioning Google in the middle between the user and the content provider:
Example of app streaming in SERP
What should we do about it?
If you don’t already have an app, this may not be relevant to you. However, it is worth considering whether you should create one. To determine whether or not you should have an app, you can ask the following questions:
Would my app…
- Add convenience?
- Offer unique value?
- Provide social value?
- Offer incentives?
- Entertain?
If the answer is no to all of these, you probably don’t need an app.
If you do have an app, though, make sure that it supports https:// web links, and then head over to my post on app indexation for a walkthrough on how to set this up.
Where’s this all heading?
I believe that all of these trends are supporting a wider push by Google towards their goal of building the ultimate, intelligent personal assistant.
Sergey Brin stated in 2013: “My vision when we started Google 15 years ago was that eventually, you wouldn’t have to have a search query at all.”
This may seem impossible, but when you consider the implicit signals which Google is now able to access through the enhanced features on a mobile device, it seems less farfetched. Already, they are able to access data around:
- Search history
- Language
- Social connections
- Time of day
- Browser
- Device
- Location
And already, users are realizing that they can provide fewer contextual signals within their keyword search and the search engine will still know what they’re asking. In addition, the technologies are becoming more finely tuned and gathering more data all the time:
- wearables that can monitor physical activity and health signals (like heart rate),
- beacons which can pinpoint a location down to which side of the street you’re standing on, and
- phones which can tell whether you’re walking, running, cycling or riding in a car.
These are all signals which in the future could be used to determine the most relevant results to serve - potentially before you even ask.
When you combine all of these signals with the integration of the public index (what we currently think of as the Google search index), the private index (your emails, photos, calendar, etc) and app content, Google could have the ability to know as much about your day to day activities as any human PA. This means a single interface for all types of searches, and eventually, an intelligent personal assistant which can anticipate your next question before you ask it.
So maybe, instead of focusing just on keywords, or even topics, the next question we should start asking is: “How can I be the most useful source from a personal assistant app’s perspective?”
If you’re interested in learning more about these trends which are shaping the future of search, like implicit signals, the changing Google interface, intelligent personal assistants, beacons, wearables, and other new devices, and more, we’ve been writing and discussing our predictions over on the Distilled blog for our new #Searchscape project.
How have you seen the mobile search landscape shift over time? Do you agree that it’s heading towards the development of intelligent personal assistants? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Absolutely Bridget you are right, nowadays mobile is frequently being used by a large amount of people. It changed the way of producing search engine results. This is going to be a major concept of intelligency.
Thanks Bridget, a very good summary of the situation and main issues with mobile search.
From our limited experience we´ve noticed a major impact on customer service connected to mobile search. Despite a web site is designed to be responsive the reality most of te times is that depending on the device + browser being used some items of the site may not work in the same way. Although the ideal is to remove those problems soon, it may take time to even identify them. Customer support role on this is crucial, not only in explaining a customer why they may not seing something on the site, but lso in gathering the necessary data to be able to fix the problem
Absolutely Luis, it's so important to understand the user experience on a concrete level rather than simply thinking 'our site's responsive, we don't have to think about mobile anymore'. The same principle applies to Google's mobile-friendly test - it's more of a bare minimum rather than a full UX audit.
Good morning Bridget!!
It is a reality, the Mobile phone has evolved to become "Immobile phone" and is undisputed think and act on new and prolific SEO strategies adapted to this device and how users make use of it.
Great post!
Thanks Sandra, glad you enjoyed it!
Definitely Bridget. !!!
You have done a great job in analyzing Mobile Search. Results shows searches and users will surely depends on only mobile compare to PC. ASO (App Store Optimization) is also as important as we have focus on SEO.
It's really great article for understand the AMP,ASO and how mobile search is changing.
Thanks for sharing such a nice information... Cheers !!!
Good Morning Bridget,
I personally think that big companies or e-commerce should have all of them an app, mainly cause even though it's sad, you can't have the same experience on the pc and the mobile page. Not all of the businesses need an app, they are ok with being responsive, but it's really useful for those who have a lot of items or share a lot of content.
Your summary was great, we just need to keep improving the mobile face cause it's now the main face of our companies!
You're definitely right to point out that the requirements often vary based on things like size of a company or business model. There's no such thing as one-size-fits-all when it comes to SEO! That's why it's so important for businesses to be able to ask themselves 'how does this apply to me' when they read new research or recommendations.
Great in depth article about mobile search in the future - loved it! :-)
Great post! Ther is no doubt the mobile strategy has to be the first and most important part of marketing from now on. :)
When most people hear the name dela of Google, you immediately think of a search engine, or that box on your web page is written to Google
The mobile versions are becoming more important every day. It seems obvious that we should focus efforts here
I think Google as a whole, not just mobile search, is heading towards the development of intelligent personal assistants. It is now reminding me to do things like getting up to work, appointment time and place, which route I should drive, where to park, and all. Maybe I should marry the VR version of Google assistant in the future.
Great post!
I hate to say this but, mobile web is dead :O
I personally don't use my pc for almost anything, I do everything on my mobile. That's why I find this article to be very important. Thank you for that. :)
Hi Bridget ,
Great post ! The mobile every day is taking more strength among users.
Thanks Bridget
This is so inspiring and also contains some insightful data for my small app-developing venture. Will inform you on the outcome (good or bad)
Oh that's great to hear! Definitely let me know how it goes!
TY Bridget, good perspective on technology growing at rocketship speed.
Prior to my current position, I spent 9 years in Web Design & IM w/ a local firm that I helped grow exponentially. I have witnessed the numerous change/improvements in accessing the web and web applications, your opinion on PA, I believe is very accurate.
The entire model of "Search" is providing the most accurate answers/help in as timely a manner possible, PA could be the next step in that direction. (look what Apple did w/ Siri) I have been asked many times "What's Next?" My reply often times was improvement in video and then Mobile and we've seen how they have improved over the last 5 years.
The BIG question to us Mozzers is "How will we address this change?"
Answer: The same way we have with every obstacle/improvement to the web since 2000, research, test and develop, work together and grow.
KJr
Hi Kevin, thanks for your insights - always great to have a different perspective (and to hear that, nonetheless, it aligns with what I've been seeing as well). And you are absolutely on point when you mention that it's all about that process of research, test, and iterate. I'm really excited to see what the next 3-5 years look like in terms of this stuff, it should be a crazy ride!
Hi Bridget
Not that consumers prefer to do their searches through mobile, but for some time has been used to find the additional information about a product or service even if it is before their eyes. Therefore it is necessary for the optimization of the mobile version of a web is paramount
Howdy Bridget,
Fascinating, isn’t it? Needless to say, we’ve come a long way… Regardless of how intuitive search engines are becoming I feel there will always be a need for the search query. It’s the behavior behind how people are searching that we SEOs need to stay in front of. Whether it’s the shift from short phrase to natural language, or something different altogether, it’ll be interesting to see what the future of search brings.
Thanks Bridget, this was a good read!
Thanks Paul! Agreed - for me user behavior is at the center of everything. I think of it like a waterfall effect, where technological changes impact user behavior, user behavior alters search and ranking factors, and subsequently SEO tactics need to be updated. That's why it's so valuable when we can identify these behavior trends early, and adapt accordingly so that our websites and content better serve those use cases, rather than waiting for a Google announcement.
Thanks Bridget,
Crazy, how fast mobile is growing! All of the things you mentioned above are great areas to focus on.
Down the road, more and more tools like https://www.mobilemoxie.com and many others are going to start coming out (Maybe MOZ will add something soon) to dig deeper in the mobile optimization of sites.
Running mobile SEO tests until your site is at 100% is going to be crucial for success. But, there is only so much software can do to help.
Tools like https://www.optimizely.com/mobile/ are also great at a testing your UXD and conversions which are also a huge indicator of how successful you will be with mobile strategy.
Again, thanks for sharing. : )
Indeed, mobile first! thanks for sharing your insights...will be sharing this too ...
" Mobile technology was becoming simply another way to access the Internet. "
It truly has become its own beast, even people at the forefront of this technology are surprised with how mobile technology is being used today.
Excellent article, Bridget. I'm glad you stressed that not all businesses need an app, and requiring your customers to download one or understand your strategy will only cause confusion and stress.