Mobile and SEO

[halloranc]

We are in the process of building a responsive version of our site for mobile users (currently about 20% of total traffic).

What are the most important SEO considerations we should be aware of when it comes to this kind of project?

Thanks

[bridget.randolph]

Hi Casey,

It sounds like you're using dynamic serving, rather than pure responsive design. The difference is that, while both approaches keep a single URL for mobile and desktop users, a responsive approach also keeps the same HTML and simply uses CSS to rearrange content on the page to fit a smaller screen; dynamic serving allows you to actually serve different HTML based on user agent.

The main thing to do for dynamic serving is to make sure you use a Vary HTTP User Agent header, to indicate to Google that you are not cloaking but rather are serving different content based on user agent to provide a mobile-friendly experience.

You can find more info on this here: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details

[AlanBleiweiss]

Actually it MAY BE RADICALLY different than building a site in "traditional" HTML as far as SEO goes.

If site navigation goes away or is radically reduced for responsive (fluid) design reasons, your code needs to embed URLs in the position where it would traditionally appear in the flowing/scrolling content. This also includes ensuring proper category funnels exist at the code level as well.

Also, site speed is a CRITICAL factor (just as it is with any other technology) except its more challenging to ensure your speed is truly maximized depending on the type of code base or framework you use for the responsive design, as well as the optimization of the CDN code and delivery pipe as well.

User WebPageTest.org to thoroughly test each template type (you can choose desktop or mobile device types), along with URIValet.com (the 1.5MBPS speed best reflects what Google tends to see).  The key is this isn't about "time it takes a user to see the content" as much as it is "time to process the code that drives the presentation" - page PROCESSING speed.

[halloranc]

Thanks Jesse,

We are building (or I should have said - having built for us by a 3rd party) a mobile version (not an m.) of our existing site. I.e. when a user accesses our site from a mobile device the new version is what will display but is the same URL etc - my understanding of responsive, but am I wrong here?

However, we are not able to carry over all the content, pics, video etc from our desktop site to the mobile. Other than this content issue, we should be able to just work as normal?

[jesse-landry]

No different than building your desktop really, as far as technical on-site SEO tactics are concerned.

You say "responsive" but then imply that you are building a separate mobile site. I always recommend building one responsive site but do understand that there are occasionally instances where it doesn't make sense to do so.

Point being, if you're truly building a responsive site then the on-site SEO considerations will be the same as you are building for all devices.