#5 Mobile SEO Mistakes that Can Kill your Conversions

We are at a time when more and more searches are happening on mobile phones than desktops. This makes it imperative for all brands, small or big, to adopt aggressive mobile strategies for accelerating their growth. Though most brands understand this fact, only a few are able to offer seamless, optimized mobile experience to their visitors. Why? What are the main mobile SEO mistakes that brands should not commit?

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My friend, only designing a mobile-friendly website is not enough, one needs to optimize the whole mobile experience for visitors to maximize success. In today's post, I'm going to discuss the top five mobile SEO mistakes that often kill conversions.

1- Sitespeed

Will you continue with a site that is taking too much time to load on your mobile phone? I won't and I believe you too won't continue with a slow loading website. 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. What's more, a 1-second delay can cause a 7% reduction in conversions. This is how page load time affects conversion.

Google considers page speed a ranking factor. As Google has started mobile-first indexing, slow loading sites are going to face a strong backlash from the search engine giant. The time of slow loading sites is over. Improve your site speed to improve conversions.

2- Intrusive Interstitials

When it comes to mobile search, Google's first priority is to offer a higher user experience. As intrusive interstitials affect user experience, Google may not rank websites with interstitials as highly. Once the ranking is dropped, the conversion rate will go lower subsequently.

Here are four types of intrusive interstitials you should avoid to use on your mobile site:

• Pop-ups that covers the entire web page immediately after a user reaches the web page through search
• Pop-ups that covers the main content when a user is looking at it
• The main content is hidden by an interstitial and a user need to dismiss it to access the main content
• Having the main content under the above-the-fold portion

If you want to make your mobile website a conversion-friendly, don't use these intrusive interstitials.

3- Typography

This is one of most common mobile SEO mistakes that many businesses commit. Typography plays an important role in mobile conversion. What exactly does typography include? The key elements of typography are typeface, fonts, line length, leading, and kerning. As mobile devices have smaller screen sizes as compared to desktops and laptops, mobile users like easy-to-read typography. If mobile users find it difficult to read your website copy, they won't hesitate to leave your website.

Follow these points to provide your mobile users with a seamless reading experience:

• Never use font less than 14 pixels
• Font color should complement your website theme color
• Use plenty of whitespace between headlines and paragraphs
• A line should not go beyond 65 characters

4- Touch Elements

If your website has interactive elements, such as checkboxes, buttons, or surveys quizzes, you should be extra careful with touch elements. To make sure mobile users are clicking the right touch elements, you should use large touch buttons optimized for mobile devices, or else you will lose many mobile visitors. Also, you should use a distinct color for all touch elements.

Remember, mobile SEO is all about boosting user experience. Small touch elements, because many mobile users find it difficult to click on them correctly, affect mobile conversions badly.

5- Website Copy

Website copy plays a vital role in conversions. As I mentioned earlier, mobile devices have small screens as compared to desktops and laptops, long copy doesn't perform well on mobile devices. Mobile users tend to be less tolerant and more demanding than desktop users. Therefore, you should make sure that your website copy is persuasive and succinct to keep your mobile visitors glued to your website.

Here are a few tips on creating website copy that converts on mobile devices:

• Write buyer's persona based copy that addresses your audience's objections
• Use the language and tone of voice that your buyer persona uses
• Focus on benefits, rather than features
• Use short words and short, simple sentences
• Around 500 words web copy tends to perform better on mobile devices

Final thoughts,

Mobile SEO is something that businesses can't ignore. If you improve website site speed, eliminate intrusive interstitials, improve typography, increase the size of touch elements, and write persuasive website copy, you will avoid common mobile SEO mistakes that kill conversions.