It is becoming more and more important to have an effective mobile site these days as Google have split their methods of ranking desktop and mobile sites. They have also applied different ways of measuring and ranking mobile and desktop sites. For instance, poorly optimised images on a desktop PC will not be penalised as harshly as such images on a mobile device. I’ve listed below five relatively simple ways of improving your mobile sites ranking on Google.
Optimisation of Images
Desktop images tend to be a lot bigger than mobile images, therefore the images used to serve mobile devices must be of smaller dimension. The easiest way to do this is to run your JPEGs and PNGs through image optimisation software. There are online and desktop optimisation tools available which will reduce the dimensions and size of the images. So a 600 x 450 pixel image, which is over 200 kB in size can be reduced to 200 x 150 pixels and about 40 kB in size. There is also optimisation software which can change the metadata of the image. This can be useful in inserting keywords, map coordinates and information about your company.
Content Minification
Taking out the spaces, lines and excess characters from a file can reduce the file size. You can sometimes, decrease the file size by 10 to 20 kb in size by doing this. While this may not seem to be a lot, if you have a lot of files, the savings will add up, especially when combined with the reduce image sizes discussed previously.
Reducing the Number of Initially Loaded Files
Your site has to request to load each file needs and each of these requests takes time and resources. This tends to slow your site. They are ways to remedy the situation. CSS files and JavaScript files, which your site needs to function correctly can be combined and reduced. These type of files tend to be loaded in the head of the site, but by combining them and moving them to the foot of the site, the site can be speeded up. There are various caching and site optimisation plug-ins available for WordPress to do just this.
Ensuring That Buttons and Links Are Big Enough to Click on Mobile Devices
Desktops and laptops use a mouse or trackpad to click on links and buttons, but on mobile devices, you are dependent on your finger to do this. If the links and buttons are not physically big enough for a person to click, then you are making it difficult for users to engage your website on a mobile device. You will probably also get a warning from Google console about your mobile site’s accessibility.
Reduce the Amount of Plug-Ins
Each plug-in that you install on a WordPress site comes with style sheets and JavaScript files these all add up and tend to slow your site down. The problem is worse for mobile devices as users expect the site to load up quickly on their mobile device. Examine all the plug-ins on your site and if you can do without any of them, deactivate and delete them. Your site will improve in load time and will operate better.
These are just a few tips on how to optimise your mobile site for better Google rank positions. I hope they have been of use to you.
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