One question I often get asked is if there is a difference between optimizing a site for desktop versus mobile devices. The answer is yes, but not by much.
As long as mobile algorithms use desktop content for ranking purposes, keyword optimization for mobile will be no different from optimization for desktop. Essentially, as the algorithms work now, you can have completely different content for mobile devices and it won’t matter. Google uses desktop content and runs that through their mobile algorithm.
Even still, I don’t see a scenario where you’d want to provide different text between the two. However, there is some value in presenting content slightly differently on a mobile device, but other than that, all users should see the same content.
The real difference in mobile optimization is in the coding the site to work better on mobile devices and then optimizing for local search, if applicable.
Important aspect for mobile coding:
- Responsive design
- Collapsible navigation
- Chunked content
- Readable font sizes
- No JavaScript
Important aspects for local optimization
- Name/Address/Phone Consistency
- Structured Data
- Reviews
If you want a complete lest of mobile and local optimization to-do’s you’ll want to check out the book, The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period!, which covers these and more quite extensively.