As the internet continues to grow and the way we access it continues to change, more and more brands and businesses have begun to target mobile users. Why is this necessary? It was determined last year that mobile traffic accounts for more than one-quarter of all internet traffic, yet many websites and businesses have not optimized their platforms for mobile traffic. The result is that you could be missing out on a huge portion of traffic that is only going to grow as time goes on. Even if you already have a mobile presence, there are a number of issues that can be holding back your mobile strategy; many webmasters and SEO enthusiasts can easily miss some of these. Below, we will discuss some common issues you may face with a mobile strategy that can derail your efforts in one way or another.

Video Incompatibilities

In a perfect world, all mobile devices would function similarly and guarantee uniform performance in areas such as search, browsing and stream capability. Unfortunately, this is not the case and as such, your mobile strategies may be negatively impacted in some cases. Videos are a great example: some videos can be played back on Android mobile devices, but not on Apple devices. This disconnect can make it more difficult to provide a multimedia experience to all, but you can work around this by pinging search engines with pages that can handle all forms of mobile traffic. While it may be a bit of a pain to create separate pages and use separate file formats for each one, you need to consider this if your mobile strategy involves copious amounts of multimedia.

Analytics Ignorance

Mobile strategy requires just as much effort as standard marketing and content creation strategies, but many fail to use analytics to keep track of mobile like they do with other, more standard elements. This is unconscionable, especially since Google Analytics offers mobile analytics monitoring as a standard feature. The only way you can assess true effectiveness in your mobile strategy is to have access to data about your bounce rates and how much of your traffic is coming through mobile devices. If you suddenly see a shift in the data, then you know either to make a change, or that the preceding change has had the desired effect.

Duplicate Keyword Targeting

If you have decided to target the same keywords via your mobile strategy as you have through your desktop strategy, then you are likely to fall short when it comes to mobile. People have fundamentally different search habits when using mobile, and are usually pinging search engines with requests for location-based information or specific statistics. If you use longer phrases and keywords in your mobile targeting, then you most likely will not see the level of traffic from mobile that you should expect. Instead of duplicating efforts, aim for smaller keywords and phrases that attempt to replicate what mobile users will actually be searching for while on the go.

Conclusion

It is easy to overlook some issues that may handicap your mobile SEO and content marketing strategies. To ensure you do not make the most common mistakes, revise your keywords to target mobile-relevant searches, pay close attention to analytics – particularly those that relate to mobile users – and consider any media incompatibilities that may exist between various mobile devices.