Mobile SEO Challenges: Highlights From The Botify Meetup

With Google's mobile-first index looming and more and more users turning to smartphones for search, Mobile SEO is one of SEOs' biggest challenges in 2017.As mobile search surpasses desktop, enterprise websites need to assess their mobile SEO strategy and make data-driven optimizations to be crawled, indexed and ranked in mobile search results to boost organic traffic.

Botify Meetup: Mobile SEO Challenges

Experts in the field of enterprise SEO, our speakers took core mobile concepts to the stage in front of some of Paris' most passionate SEO specialists. They shared their knowledge, tips, and data-driven case studies to illustrate the power of mobile SEO.

Mobile & SEO: Patrice Laroche, SEO Manager at retailer Envie de Fraise

Today, 52% of internet users search using their smartphone. Mobile has now officially surpassed desktop search. A well-built SEO strategy is critical now, more than ever.Patrice kicked us off with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of dynamic serving as an option for mobile, automatically detecting the device version of a page to serve up to site visitors. Though errors are possible, in a mobile-first world dynamic serving is compelling for sites interested in streamlining their pages into one single URL rather than separating mobile pages.With pros and cons for each approach, responsive design, dynamic serving, and building a dedicated mobile site are all interesting options for tackling the mobile challenge.

AMP: Virginie Clève, Digital Strategy Advisor at agency Largow

Google states that sites can gain between 15-85% increase in load time performance using AMP.But what is AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) and how does it work? Virginie walked us through the value of AMP's nearly-instant load times even with poor mobile connections and explained the core of AMP functionality: pre-rendering.More important than the history and inner workings of the technology, however, is how to manage it at enterprise scale. Proper canonical tags and linking is critical for successful SEO with Accelerated Mobile Pages. Without proper tags, AMP URLs return errors, and Google will not accept any page errors, no matter how small.With data examples pulled from leading US publishers and e-commerce sites, it's clear that AMP is a major contributor to mobile SEO success for the sites that use it.

Mobile SEO Results: Valentina Valceanu, SEO Manager at Michelin Travel Partner

How does search differ between mobile and desktop users?Valentina wrapped up the evening by presenting Michelin's analysis of the differences between mobile and desktop traffic, and how to turn those insights into optimization opportunities.Her takeaways? Analyzing keyword performance across devices shows click-through rate is different for the top 3 results on mobile versus desktop. Adapting mobile SEO strategy to emphasize geolocalization where Google does can help boost valuable pages into the top results.Not stopping there, Valentina emphasized that mobile SEO is more than just website content. Mobile sites and app-indexing are valuable and impactful aspects of enterprise SEO that must be properly optimized and can drive significant results.

Optimizing for Mobile in 2017

From dynamic serving to Accelerated Mobile Pages to app-indexing and every nuance in between, mobile SEO strategy remains a formidable challenge for SEOs this year.Want to go deeper into Mobile SEO tips & analysis? Check out our webinar to Optimize Your Mobile SEO Strategy.