The Mobile Marketing Optimization Checklist

No matter how hard you try, it’s nearly impossible to stay away from mobile marketing. With roughly 77% of Americans owning a smartphone (according to PEW Research Center), people are bound to visit your website or search for your business using their mobile device at some point.

And if you’re thinking, “Just because people are using them doesn’t mean they’re buying things on them.” – You’d be wrong.

In fact, 62% of smartphone users have made a purchase online using their mobile device in the last 6 months.

This is why having a mobile marketing plan and an optimized website is so crucial, especially in 2018 and beyond. As Neil Patel cleverly puts it: “Mobile isn’t just the way of the future. It’s the way of the now.”

Mobile Marketing Checklist

Now that you know how crucial mobile marketing and optimization is for the success of your business online, here is a run-down of all of the mobile marketing essentials…

1. Mobile-friendly Website and Apps

Creating a mobile-friendly website that works seamlessly across any device is number one on the list. This includes: 

• Responsive web design – Responsive web design is an approach to web design aimed at providing an optimal viewing and interactive web experience that is easy to read, navigate, and designed to work across a wide range of devices.
  
  Websites that are optimized to use the responsive web design technology offer a rich user experience, automatic resizing of site menus, navigation, content, images, and much more.
  
  
• Quick load time – Based on Google’s mobile page speed study, as page load time slows from one second to seven seconds, the bounce rate gradually increases by 113%.
  
  
• Smart UX/UI – With bounce rates on mobile 40% higher than on desktops, it is clear that visitors no longer tolerate non-optimized, difficult to navigate pages. Make sure all your buttons and tabs work and your content and images are resized appropriately. 
  
  
• Other mobile optimization – Other places you can optimize for mobile include: (a) Images — compress heavy images; (b) Animations — remove Flash; (c) Pop-ups — get rid of intrusive pop-ups; (d) Titles and meta descriptions — make them shorter, to optimize for lesser screen space.
   

2. Local Search Optimization

Another interesting fact about mobile searches is that 40% of them have local intent, meaning they are searching for something near them.

With this in mind, prioritizing local search is very important. Here are a few tips to consider:

• Include shorter keywords for organic searches but optimize for longer, more natural keywords for voice searches
  
  
• Although it seems counterintuitive, consider shortening the content of your info pages (About us, Contact us, etc.) to 300-500 words 
  
  
• Include local keywords in title tags, page titles, Alt texts, and content
  
  
• Add your company name, address, and phone number to header, footer, and sidebar
  
  
• Prioritize user experience over bot experience (better UX, faster load time, highly-specialized and visually optimized content)
   

3. PPC & Social Campaigns for Mobile

Since only a few organic search results can fit on a phone screen, a lot more companies are investing more into pay-per-click (PPC) to get placed at the top of the search pack.

Ensuring your paid campaigns are optimized for mobile will give you a much higher chance for success. Here are a few tips for optimizing your PPC campaigns for mobile: 

• Create a compelling, mobile-focused ad copy by also including phrases like “purchase from your smartphone,” “order from your mobile,” “easy mobile leasing,” etc.
  
  
• Use mobile ad extensions. Specifically, you should try sitelinks, call extensions, click-to-call ads, and local extensions (e.g. location, affiliate location).
  
  
• Set up promoted pins. This puts your logo on the Google Map, which naturally increases the visibility and accessibility of your website in search.
  
  
• Optimize your bidding strategies. Bid your ads to top-performing search results and make sure to adjust them to target your marketing goals.

In a mobile-first world, your website and entire marketing strategy need to be thinking about how the pieces are presented on mobile. If you don’t, you’ll undoubtedly lose a large portion of your market share to competitors who make it easy to shop and research on mobile.

Every little bit of optimization helps with customers and Google – from mobile SEO and content to paid advertising, social media, and usability.

If you need help getting up to speed with mobile marketing, call Sales & Marketing Technologies today at (407) 682-2222 for a free strategy session with one of our expert digital marketers.