Is there still any value in tracking keyword rankings for desktop?
-
Seeing as everything is graduating towards mobile first, is there any value in tracking desktop and smartphone keywords separately?
-
Hey Unique Digital,
It's a good question, and I hear what you're saying. If Google is crawling everything as a mobile crawler only, desktop rankings should basically be the same, right?
It might get there eventually, but I can say that it's definitely not there now. For one, Google is crawling mobile first, but it's also keeping an eye on desktop versions of sites. At the very least, I'm pretty sure Google is separating mobile and desktop UX metrics.
Also, on queries for my company's site (international money transfers), I can tell you that 1) Google does not show the same rankings between desktop and mobile. Mobile has more answer boxes, and I've noticed that if a site has an answer box, they're less likely to also have the #1 organic result.
So, at least for now, yes, you should track both.
Best,
Kristina
-
This depends entirely upon the site in question and what industry it falls into, as well as the target audience
The general rule is that for B2C mobile optimisations and tracking are superior as many transactions now happen on mobile. But in a B2B environment, particularly targeting office workers, most of them still use desktop terminals as their work-horses, and most of them make business transactions from a desktop machine
These general rules have exceptions, one big example is construction industry B2B. Although B2B is still predominantly desktop, if you are targeting workers, managers and supervisors on a construction site, much of their business decisions are made on mobile devices which bucks the trend
Think of your audience, who they are, and what device they will be in front of as / before / during their transaction
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Optimizing a Webpage without keywords
Hi all, I’m really running into a challenge internally lately in that we have a lot of teams redesigning or building new pages (specificially one team) that do NOT loop our teams in. When we finally get them to work with us, to drive traffic to the pages, they disagree that there must be other ways of optimizing the pages than focusing on keywords with search volume that are relevant to the page. We usually land that they will choose a keyword or two they think a user will search for, we do keyword research and pick something close (because they don’t want to utilize a term that doesn’t make much sense, as they have written the content without involving us from the beginning, but then our search volume is declining). They keep saying there are other ways than changing the paired down content on their page and adding in keywords to the H1 headers, content on page. they mentioned semantic search at one point. For example, https://www.entrust.com/products/entrust-getaccess/ currently ranks around #10 for "single sign on solution." This keyword was on the previous page quite a few times in headers and body copy. Now it appears on the page 3 times after the redesign and is not in the h1. The team does for example want to optimize for this term, but there’s lots of pushback as they want a page with minimal content and little design. Just wondering your thoughts on this. IS this a common challenge you deal with too and any idea on answers as I've tried many with the teams? Thanks, Laura
Keyword Research | | lauramrobinson321 -
Is this keyword cannibalization?
I have a product page and our home page ranked for the same keyword. On August 6th the product page was ranked #14 then plummeted to #60. On August 13th our home page was in the #2 spot (line just appears out of nowhere) and it is now in the #1 spot. I also see the same pages appearing for some keywords ranked in multiple positions then plummeting and one coming back up. I'm having a hard time understanding how the Keyword tool in Moz is reporting exactly. Thanks! To add to this: From Oct 8th to the 15th we jumped up from #60 to #16 for one keyword and then by Oct. 22nd are back down to #60. I have a huge spike on the 15th. Wondering if that had anything to do with any algorithm updates?
Keyword Research | | Sika220 -
Why do my keyword ranking differ from the results on Google ?
I've been working on a specific campaign for a couple of days, and been noticing that my keyword ranking is much different on my campaign than in reality. I tried my keyword on Google (with the same settings I have on my campaign) and my keyword ranks at #5 instead of not in 50, as indicated on my campaign. Can someone give me a hint on this issue ? Thank you !
Keyword Research | | marketingmedia.ca0 -
My home page doesn't rank for its brand keyword
I'm wondering why my website www.travelnasia.com home page URL does not rank in the top 50 for the brand keyword "travelnasia". Does this indicate a problem? A page linking to my site ranks at No 1. A domain listing for my site ranks No 2. A SiteJabber review of my site ranks No 3. My own privacy page ranks #4 and my Contact Us page ranks No 5. My home page is nowhere to be seen in the top 50. It does rank #1 for the qualified domain "travelnasia.com", just not for the unqualified domain. I just don't know what to make of that. My competitors all seem to rank #1 for their brands, so I'm not sure why I don't at least rank in the top 50 for mine.
Keyword Research | | Gavin.Atkinson0 -
Long tail keyword research
Is there any way for me to figure out long tail key words related to keyword such as "IT solutions"? This is a competitive term. How do I figure out related keywords with high search volume and less competition?
Keyword Research | | zsyed0 -
Weekly Keyword Ranking Report Question
Howdy folks! Okay so apologies for the n00b question, and additional apologies for going over ground that's potentially already been ploughed. I'm compiling a tally of the Weekly Keyword Ranking Report for a client. For the past three reports, the particular keyword I'm logging has remained in the same position. However the Change column shows it as having decreased in rank, by the same amount every week. If there has been no change in the ranking, I would have thought it would display as "Unchanged". As it stands, it shows up in the Declined category, and that seems odd to me. Anyone have an idea as to why this would be happening? Thanks for any input you can provide! Kevin
Keyword Research | | Treefrog_SEO0 -
Google Keyword Tool - Competition - How does it compare to SEOMoz Keyword Difficulty?
Hi, Many times, when I look up a keyword in google using their Keyword Tool, the competition might be low or medium, but, it doesn't seem close to the keyword difficulty on SEOMoz. For example, I looked up fantasy sports. It's low competition on Google. I thought, wow, that's amazing. How can that be when it's so popular? Huge search volume, low competition. Then, SEOMoz says 76% difficulty. It sort of shatters my enthusiasm all of a sudden. Maybe I have to change the order of how I look at it 🙂 What is the difference that's going on? What would be considered low keyword difficulty on SEOMoz? How about medium and high? I know someone might argue that for some guru, what's hard for one person isn't hard for the guru, but, for the average webmaster who does some seo, uses SEOMoz, and some other SEO tools, is there some general breakdown? Thanks.
Keyword Research | | webtarget0 -
Is this keyword cannibalization?
Hi, Is using keywords in different orders considered keyword cannibalization? for example, if I my client has a catering business based in mississauga, Ontario, should I create separate 2nd tier pages on the following keywords? 1. mississauga catering 2. catering mississauga 3. catering in mississauga Is that keyword cannibalization? The reason I ask is because it's often hard to find a good # of diverse keywords for local businesses that are also used more than a few times each month in the search engines. thanks, Martin
Keyword Research | | RogersSEO0