Introduction

Coronavirus was declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organisation on 30 January 2020. Not only have governments, and particularly healthcare systems, had to respond swiftly to mitigate the risks and ensure the wellbeing of their citizens, COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on work practices across every industry – and law is no exception.

In order to assess whether consumer behaviours and attitudes towards travel have changed ahead of the 2021 summer holiday period, we created this report, which outlines consumer behaviour using search data, social media listening, keyword research and data from respondents gathered through surveys and user groups.

The pandemic has forced entire firms to work from home, turbocharged technology adoption across the sector, impacted client demand and forced prices to increase. Although, after a year and a half, the legal community has embraced many of these pandemic-driven changes, some haven’t fared so well in the face of such rapid and distinct changes.

The data for this report was compiled in late 2020, and at the time of launch (March 2021), we Brits have provisionally been told that travel will be permitted from the 17th May – subject to the lockdown exit stage criteria being met.

To delve deeper into the impact COVID-19 has had on the legal sector, we take a look at how smaller law firms have coped relative to larger firms in the UK market. To do this, we have analysed the visibility and organic traffic of the top 10 and bottom 10 UK law firms, comparing performance in 2018 (pre-pandemic), 2020 (during) and 2022 (post-pandemic).

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How Covid-19 has changed the legal sector

Thankfully, it looks like we’re coming out the other end of the COVID-19 pandemic. And, whilst this is great news, it doesn’t necessarily mean the end to the issues that have arisen in the legal sphere as a result of it. So, how has the coronavirus pandemic impacted the legal sector as a whole?

Remote work

One of the most significant results of the pandemic, which influenced nearly all sectors, is the switch to remote work. Along with almost every other profession, lawyers were forced to pack up their offices and move work into their homes. With this change, lawyers had to adjust to video meetings with clients and work with co-workers on projects without the ease of being in the same office.

It will be interesting to see how this drastic change to working life affected the law sector – whether for better or for worse. Will larger law firms have slipped with such large teams to keep track of? Or will the smaller ones have failed to adapt due to a lack of resources?

Client demand

During the period of ‘lockdown’ there were fewer arrests, charges and prosecutions brought by the Crown Court Prosecution Service, trial by jury was paused, and fewer civil cases were started. This reduction in legal activity meant lower client demand and, thus, lower incomes for legal service providers.

With this in mind, we would expect to see a decline in demand for legal services during the pandemic. However, given that many cases were put on hold throughout, now that we’re starting to emerge from it, we could expect to see a sudden surge in client demand again in 2022.

It will be interesting to see how this drastic change to working life affected the law sector – whether for better or for worse. Will larger law firms have slipped with such large teams to keep track of? Or will the smaller ones have failed to adapt due to a lack of resources?

Client expectations

In addition to a potential post-pandemic surge in demand, we’re seeing the legal needs of clients shift and evolve. According to Thomson Reuters, the main trends and developments during the pandemic (2021) in the UK legal market were strongly client-centric and client-driven. Issues from increased legal spending to what clients want to see from their external firms in terms of expertise, tech-savviness, and efficiency dominated the minds of lawyers and their clients.

Since even before the pandemic, the service needs of UK legal buyers were becoming more complex and intertwined. Data from Thomson Reuters also found that client satisfaction rests on the ability of law firms to provide consistency and innovation, which in turn, can provide them with opportunities to differentiate themselves in the competitive UK market.

Rising costs

More recently, a slightly lagged impact of the pandemic has been inflation, which has drastically impacted legal rates. And inflation ramped up so quickly in the second half of 2021 that many law firms had very little chance to react.

In the past, law firms have predominantly relied on raising their rates each year as key means of improving profits, as opposed to increasing the hours they work, on average. With inflation so high, though, worked rate growth currently lags inflation.

This threat of inflation gives plenty of incentive to push rates up. This will, however, test the willingness of clients to accept such steep rate increases.

How has Covid-19 affected different sized law firms?

To determine how the impact on large law firms has differed to that of smaller ones, we selected the top and bottom 10 law firms according to thelawyer.com. We then conducted an analysis into their SEO performance, including visibility and organic traffic, for the years 2018 (pre-pandemic), 2020 (during) and 2022 (post-pandemic) to determine which fared better over the period of Covid-19.

The top 10 UK law firms
RankLaw FirmAverage Revenue 2015-18 (M£)
1DLA Piper1674
2Clifford Chance1472
3Clifford Chance1430
4Linklaters1378
5Hogan Lovells1373
6Freshfields Buckhaus Deringer1312
7Norton Rose Fullbright1204
8Herbert Smith Freehills889
9CMS840
10Ashurst543
The bottom 10 UK law firms
RankLaw FirmAverage Revenue 2015-18 (M£)
100Turcan Connell23
99Geldards23
98Stevens & Bolton23
97DMH Stallard23
96Boodle Hatfield24
95Harper Macleod25
94Harbottle & Lewis25
93MW Solicitors26
92Gordon Dadds26
91Sackers26
90Digby Brown26

Organic visibility

Organic visibility: top 10 UK law firms (2018/2020/2022)
Law FirmVisibility score 2018 (pre-pandemic)Visibility score 2020 (during pandemic)Visibility growth % (2018-2020)Visibility score 2022 (post-pandemic)Visibility growth % (2020-2022)
DLA Piper5821,520+1611,226-19
Clifford Chance1,1801,552+322,648+124
Allen & Overy8841,262+43979-22
Linklaters1,2381,408+141,515+8
Hogan Lovells1,3191,358+3532-61
Freshfields Buckhaus Deringer271518+91248-52
Norton Rose Fullbright2,3921,538-36814-47
Herbert Smith Freehills1,1351,143+0.71,202+5
CMS1,6891,171-311,674+43
Ashurst255718+1821,483+107

Looking at the visibility change for the top 10, it is clear that nearly all but two experienced fairly significant growth from pre-pandemic (2018) to during the pandemic (2020). The only two that experienced some slight decline during this period was Norton Rose Fullbright (7) and CMS (9).

However, this visibility trend changed slightly with the onset of the pandemic, with half of the top 10, including the number one ranked (DLA Piper), suffering a loss of visibility from 2020 to 2022. Nevertheless, it is clear that many of those more established managed to fare relatively well throughout the pandemic, with most only seeing their visibility growth slow slightly and others actually continuing to see visibility growth post-pandemic.

This suggests that while some larger businesses failed to maintain the impressive visibility growth seen pre-pandemic, most have managed to at least not see a large drop or have even managed to keep on seeing improvements.

Organic traffic

Organic traffic: top 10 UK law firms (2018/2020/2022)
Law FirmOrganic traffic 2018 (during pandemic)Organic traffic 2020 (post-pandemic)Organic traffic growth % (2018-2020)Organic traffic 2022 (post-pandemic)Organic traffic growth % (2020-2022)
DLA Piper1,05813,903+12146,010-57
Clifford Chance10,46913,310+2739,986+200
Allen & Overy24,81928,246+1449,692+76
Linklaters20,52926,068+2732,785+26
Hogan Lovells22,96027,208+1923,493-14
Freshfields Buckhaus Deringer20,20325,620+2720,763-19
Norton Rose Fullbright013,28116,632+25
Herbert Smith Freehills20,98123,544+1223,205+18
CMS020,51927,868+36
Ashurst16,53525,184+5235,564+41

The trend in organic traffic for the top 10 is fairly in line with that for visibility. Pre-pandemic, all larger law firms were experiencing significant growth in organic traffic, with DLA Piper (1) seeing the largest increase. For most of the top 10, this growth, despite largely slowing, continued throughout the pandemic. In fact, 7 out of 10 continued to see organic traffic grow slowly between 2020 and 2022.

This indicates that most larger law firms, despite seeing some impact from the pandemic, have still managed to maintain growth in the face of the changes forced upon them by Covid.

Organic traffic: bottom 10 UK law firms (2018/2020/2022)
Law FirmOrganic traffic 2018 (during pandemic)Organic traffic 2020 (post-pandemic)Organic traffic growth % (2018-2020)Organic traffic 2022 (post-pandemic)Organic traffic growth % (2020-2022)
Turcan Connell3,9212,883-261,925-33
Geldards3,8215,562+462,354-58
Stevens & Bolton2,6436,405+1426,905+8
DMH Stallard4,9815,120+36,051+18
Boodle Hatfield4,2385,182+222,237-57
Harper Macleod6,9108,335+209,348+12
Harbottle & Lewis3,8494,989+293,688-26
MW Solicitors05191+3720
Gordon Dadds01,8399,364+409
Sackers1,9441,186-391,187+0.08
Digby Brown1,9447,527-37,986+6

Like with those more established, most smaller law firms were also seeing improvements in organic traffic pre-pandemic, with 8 out of 10 experiencing growth. Yet, this growth was much smaller than that seen for the larger businesses before the pandemic hit in 2020.

Unlike the larger law firms, however, organic traffic growth post-pandemic has been much slower for smaller law firms, with some continuing to experience a decline in traffic to their websites.

This suggests that, as with visibility, smaller brands have failed to recover from the impacts of the pandemic as well as the larger ones, struggling to attract potential clients to their websites.

What do these findings mean?

Overall, the results from our analysis of visibility and organic traffic performance of the top 10 and bottom 10 law firms in the UK suggest that the larger ones have been more successful in their recovery from the impacts of the pandemic.

Despite both the larger and smaller brands both experiencing some visibility and traffic growth prior to the pandemic hitting, the smaller firms failed to maintain or improve this growth during and after the pandemic. By contrast, many of the top 10 were able to keep their visibility and traffic levels stable, while some even experienced some growth during the pandemic. This indicates that not only were larger firms able to cope with the sudden changes brought about by the pandemic, but that they have fully evolved how they work and market to maintain or continue this growth post-pandemic.

Perhaps this is a sign that the larger brands are simply able to throw more resources at the problem and come out the other side comparatively unscathed. Whether it’s marketing, training, or recruitment resources, these will have all made a massive difference in maintaining or growing their brand presence online and attracting more people to their websites.

What can smaller law firms do to remain competitive post-Covid?

At first glance, the legal sector doesn’t seem like the standard bearer for change and innovation. After all, the go-to marketing strategies and business models of most have remained static for over half a century.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic has turned these traditional marketing tactics on their head. Today, in this post-covid legal world, clients have more choice than ever before, so legal firms, and especially the smaller, less established ones, must do more to stand out from the crowd and articulate their competitive advantage to potential clients.

Perhaps once seemingly unnecessary in a sector that just kept on growing, digital marketing is now becoming widely recognised as essential to navigating a changing future. In fact, according to a 2018 Legal Marketing Association (LMA) report, over 60% of law firms are increasing their focus on marketing and business development. This fact contributed to 41% of them stating that acquiring or increasing marketing staff was a top investment.

A sound SEO strategy can work to boost brand awareness online by improving organic visibility. In turn, driving more website traffic and converting more potential clients. As a result, smaller players will be placed in a better position to levy their resources and adapt to the changes brought about by the pandemic, mitigating issues like remote work, recruitment, client expectations and rising costs.

For further information on the data presented above or to hear more about our SEOcontent strategy, and content marketing services, feel free to contact us directly.

Most people are aware of how detrimental the Covid-19 pandemic has been to so many industries across the UK, but the legal sector, despite being one of the hardest-hit, is often overlooked. Conducting this research, I was able to highlight, not only how the legal climate has changed as a result of the pandemic, but also the disparities it has caused amongst larger law firms that were already performing well and smaller law firms that weren’t quite as established before we were hit.

What I found most interesting about this research was the extent to which the pandemic affected smaller law firms compared to larger ones. While I did expect smaller firms to have been slightly slower to adapt, it was surprising to see just how significant their drop in performance was from pre- to post-Covid.

Chloe Robinson

Senior Content Writer

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Introduction

HTML headings? You’ve likely heard of them but what actually are they, what is their purpose and how do you write them?

In traditional print content, headings are phrases at the beginning of a section that explain what it’s about. Well, it’s much the same when it comes to headings on the World Wide Web, too. Correct use of HTML headings on a web page provides structure and a quick run-down of what a webpage is about, helping both search engine bots and humans understand your content.

So, if you want to improve your SEO efforts, HTML headings are a good place to start. But getting your head around even the most basic HTML can be difficult. Luckily for you, we’ve put together this handy beginner’s guide to HTML headings. In this guide, we’ll learn what HTML headings are, how they benefit SEO and how to write HTML heading tags correctly.

Points we’ll touch on:

What is HTML?

HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language, is the basic building block of most web pages – a system for telling browsers how to structure content. For example, the language can be used to specify which part of a page is the title, which is a heading, a list, an image and so on. It can also be used to hyperlink a word, embed an image, bold a font and so much more.

It is one of three essential components that web designers use to create websites, alongside Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and Javascript (JS). In web design, HTML acts as the simple base upon which to build CSS and JS. While CSS allows you to customise your web page with colour, fonts, styling and layouts, JS allows you to add dynamic functionality like pop-ups and sliders.

What are HTML headings?

Now for the good stuff…

HTML headings are titles or subtitles that you want to display on a webpage. These heading tags are used to differentiate the headings (<h1>) and sub-headings (<h2>-<h6>) of a page from the rest of the content.

HTML defines six levels of headings, including H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6. The most important heading is the H1, while the least important is the H6. The heading tags from H1 to H6 form a top-down hierarchy, which means that if you skip any of the tags, the structure will be broken. This is bad news for SEO.

What are heading tags?

When talking about headings, people often refer to “heading tags”. To avoid any confusion, heading tags are the tags added to a heading to signal what level of heading it should be.

The heading tags from H1 to H6 form a top-down hierarchy, which means that if you skip any of the tags, the structure will be broken. This is bad news for SEO.

For example, if your site is introduced with a H1 tag then you skip the H2 and go straight to a H3 tag, you’ll have broken the top-down hierarchy and the heading structure won’t be SEO-friendly.

Writing heading tags is fairly simple when you know how. Take the above heading, for example. If you looked up the HTML heading tag for the H2, “What are heading tags?”, it would look something like this:

Here, the <h2> is the opening tag for the H2 heading, while the </h2> is the closing heading tag.

What about header tags?

It’s also critical not to confuse heading tags with header tags. Unlike heading tags, header tags refer to the <head> section of your HTML code.

Header tags can be used to define the header of a document or a section of your content. Most often, they’re used to represent introductory content and, while they may contain some heading elements, they can also include a logo, a search form, an author name, and many other elements.

Why are HTML heading tags needed for SEO?

HTML heading tags remain a strong signal for SEO. This means that implementing heading tags correctly could improve your website’s organic performance. There are two main reasons why HTML headings are super important for SEO:

  1. To structure the page and improve readability
  2. To highlight relevant keywords

Improving readability

Adding headings and subheadings to a page divides the content into easy-to-scan blocks that both readers and bots can consume.

Like headings in print content, heading tags are used to title or introduce the content below them. As already mentioned, HTML tags follow a hierarchy, from <h1> to <h6>:

  • H1 tags – used to denote the most important text, such as the overall topic or title
  • H2 and H3 tags – usually used as sub-headings
  • H4, H5 and H6 tags – provide further structure within those subsections

HTML heading tags are incredibly useful for both users and search engines. For users, headings give them a preview of the content they’re about to read. For search engines, such as Google, a heading is a strong signal that tells them the topic of a specific section.

So, ultimately, heading tags are important for SEO because they help Google understand your content, while also making your web pages more user-friendly.

Highlight relevant keywords

Search engine bots see the text used within HTML heading tags as more valuable compared with the rest of the text on the page. Therefore, search engines weigh the words included in the heading tags more highly when they’re trying to determine a page’s relevancy to users’ search queries. In fact, a page’s H1 tag is one of the most impactful places you can use a keyword.

For example, if the main keyword you want to target is “HTML headings”, you would use that in your H1 tags. Then, you would include any semantically related keywords throughout the rest of your content, including your subheadings.

Like headings in print content, heading tags are used to title or introduce the content below them. As already mentioned, HTML tags follow a hierarchy, from <h1> to <h6>:

  • H1 tags – used to denote the most important text, such as the overall topic or title
  • H2 and H3 tags – usually used as sub-headings
  • H4, H5 and H6 tags – provide further structure within those subsections

HTML heading tags are incredibly useful for both users and search engines. For users, headings give them a preview of the content they’re about to read. For search engines, such as Google, a heading is a strong signal that tells them the topic of a specific section.

So, ultimately, heading tags are important for SEO because they help Google understand your content, while also making your web pages more user-friendly.

What are HTML headings?

What is an H1 tag?

So, as mentioned above, H1 tags are the most important HTML heading. Why? Essentially, it acts as the page title. The H1 tag is a critical ranking factor for search engines, being considered by bots to determine what a page is all about.

Also, given that H1-tagged content tends to appear larger on a webpage, the H1 tag is typically the very first page element seen by readers, making it a determiner of whether they keep on reading or go back to the search results page (SERP).

What is the difference between a heading and a subheading?

While a heading acts as the title of a piece of content, a subheading acts as an extension of that heading.

The purpose of the heading, or H1 tag, is to grab the attention of both humans and search engine bots. Humans read a heading to determine whether the content is relevant to them, while bots read a heading to find out whether it is relevant to any search queries.

By contrast, the subheading is placed right below the heading and drives the reader to continue reading through the rest of the content.

SEO H1 tags best practices

Considering that H1 tags are clearly so important, it’s crucial that you know how to properly optimise them for SEO. To do so, follow our SEO H1 tags best practices below:

  • Use H1 tags for page titles
  • Use title case for H1s
  • Match H1s to title tags
  • Only use one H1 tag per page
  • Use an H1 tag on every important page
  • Keep H1 tags short
  • Include your target keyword
  • Make H1 tags compelling

SEO H1 tags best practices

Considering that H1 tags are clearly so important, it’s crucial that you know how to properly optimise them for SEO. To do so, follow our SEO H1 tags best practices below:

  • Use H1 tags for page titles
  • Use title case for H1s
  • Match H1s to title tags
  • Only use one H1 tag per page
  • Use an H1 tag on every important page
  • Keep H1 tags short
  • Include your target keyword
  • Make H1 tags compelling

What are H2 tags?

Whereas your H1 tag is used for your page’s main heading, your key points are wrapped up in subheadings known as H2s. In other words, your <h2> tag defines the second-level heading on your webpage.

What are H3 tags?

However, subheadings don’t just stop at H2s. Any sub-points below your <h2> tags should use <h3> heading tags, while sub-points below H3s should use the <h4> heading tag, and so on.

This sequence can continue all the way to <h6> tags, which are the least important in the heading tag hierarchy.

How to write HTML headings

Overall, writing HTML headings is about organising your content in a way that makes it easier for readers to scan and understand. Therefore, headings should be used hierarchically, starting with your H1 tag and working your way down to H2, H3 and beyond.

If you’re just writing a short piece of content, you might only have a single H1 tag and a couple of H2 tags. But for longer, more complex content, you might require headings through to H6 to make your content more readable.

When structuring your headings, focus on breaking down the topic into clear, logical sections – don’t just create headings for the purpose of SEO. Your H1 should introduce the topic, while your H2 subheadings should break that topic down into key sections. Any following headings should then add extra detail.

The different HTML heading levels should be written as follows:

This code would result in:

For example, if you were writing a content piece about the benefits of owning a dog, your heading structure might look a little like this:

Takeaways

So, what do you need to take away from our beginner’s guide to HTML headings?

First, HTML headings are still an important ranking factor for SEO. So, using them properly will help improve the organic ranking performance of your website.

Finally, when writing HTML headings, structure them in a logical way that will help both readers and search engine bots make sense of your content.

Find out more about our SEO services and get in touch today. Or, to learn more about digital marketing, visit our blog.

Second, HTML heading tags also improve user experience by making your content easier to read and understand.

Third, HTML heading tags should be used hierarchically, with H1 at the highest level and H6 at the lowest. H1 tags are most important and should include your target keyword.

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In recent years, search engine optimisation (SEO) has become a fundamental building block for digital marketing.

Today, nearly all online businesses implement an SEO strategy to boost their online visibility, improve their search engine results page (SERP) rankings, and drive more organic traffic.

However, more recently mobile SEO is starting to take over. Given that approximately half of worldwide web traffic comes from mobile devices, mobile-friendly SEO is taking precedence over “normal” SEO. For a number of years now, Google has been emphasising the importance of mobile-first indexing – the use of the mobile version of content for indexing and ranking. More recently, though, the search engine introduced mobile-first indexing for the entire web!

An increasing number of online businesses and SEO professionals are shifting their focus towards the all-important domain of mobile optimisation. So, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, it’s about time that you did something about it. Websites that still aren’t properly optimised for mobile SEO are inevitably wasting marketing efforts and losing much-needed sales.

In this beginner’s guide to mobile-friendly SEO, we’ll help you understand what SEO for mobile sites is, how it differs from normal SEO and how you can optimise your website for it. Let’s get started.

Points we’ll touch on:

What is mobile SEO?

Mobile SEO refers to improving the experience of visitors who navigate to your website from a mobile device, such as a tablet or smartphone. To do this, website owners must take steps to optimise their sites to make them more mobile-friendly.

In return, Google will reward such efforts with better rankings, visibility and, ultimately, more traffic to their sites.

Why is mobile SEO important in 2022?

We’re all aware that the world is becoming more and more mobile-centric by the day. So much so in fact, that, in 2022, the number of worldwide smartphone users is estimated at 6.6 billion – a 4.9% annual increase.

So, without a doubt, SEO for mobile sites is important to ensure all smartphone users have a great experience on your website. Mobile-friendly SEO ensures that your site presents your content in the best possible way for mobile searchers to understand.

If your website isn’t properly optimised for mobile SEO, you’ll almost certainly miss out on ranking improvements in the SERPs. To avoid this, you should do everything in your power to optimise SEO for your mobile site.

How is mobile SEO different to normal SEO?

If you haven’t shifted your focus to targeting mobile users, then it’s clear that you need to do so – and pretty sharpish. But what actually is the difference between mobile SEO and normal SEO?

How is mobile SEO different to normal SEO?

Mobile-first indexing was introduced by Google in 2018 and, as a result, search results for mobile and desktop are fairly similar – but definitely not the same. It’s crucial to understand the difference between desktop and mobile in search so that you have the best foundation upon which to build different strategies for desktop and mobile SEO.

The biggest difference between mobile and desktop search results is how text results appear in the SERPs. For example, mobile text results tend to be larger because Google places more emphasis on visuals when it comes to mobile. And, in many cases, images or videos will appear alongside mobile listings.

As such, only two to three mobile listings will fit on a screen at any one time, forcing mobile users to swipe multiple times to go through the results, taking longer to reach the bottom of the SERP. This means mobile users are more likely to click on the first few results rather than endlessly scrolling.

By contrast, up to five desktop listings can usually fit on a screen at once, making it easier for users to scroll through the results and get to the bottom much quicker. This suggests that it’s even more important to be at the top of the SERPs on mobile devices – otherwise, your listing might not even be seen.

Click-through rate

The second factor that tends to vary between desktop and mobile search is click-through rate (CTR). When you look at the CTR for mobile it drops less than that for desktop. On mobile, the CTR for the first-ranking position is 24%, compared to just 14% for the second-ranking position.

There are a number of potential reasons why CTR drops less for mobile than desktop:

  • Mobile features individual cards for each listing, making it easier to look at individual listings
  • Having photos on mobile listings further down the results page might be more visually appealing to mobile users
  • The desktop’s wider screen means search results have more space to have multiple listings visible at a time, as well as sponsored ads and search features

How to optimise a website for mobile SEO?

Now we know how important it is to optimise your website for mobile-friendly SEO, how do you go about doing it? To improve your mobile SEO, there are some best practices you need to follow:

Improve your page speed

Any SEO knows how important page speed is to their efforts. The faster your web pages load, the better the user experience, and the better your search engine rankings will be. However, take that level of importance and multiply it by 10 for mobile SEO; because of hardware and connectivity issues, page speed is even more crucial for mobile users compared to desktop users.

Some ways you can improve your page speed include:

  • Optimise images
  • Minify code
  • Reduce redirects
  • Leverage browser caching
  • Invest in better web hosting

Take advantage of structured data

Again, structured data is essential for any site, but especially for mobile site SEO. Structured data allows you to describe your website content in a way that search engines will understand. If your site is properly optimised using structured data, in return, search engines might reward you with rich results – enhanced results in the Google SERP with extra visual or interactive features, such as carousels and images.

Given that you have a smaller screen space on a mobile device, a search result with rich snippets is even more likely to stand out than on a desktop.

Optimise for local search

Users worldwide perform many “near me” searches on their mobile devices, for which Google returns more localised results compared to on desktops. Therefore, optimising your mobile site for local SEO is critical to gaining a competitive advantage in your industry.

There are a number of steps you can take to optimise your website for local search:

  • Add schema markup to your site
  • Update name, address, and phone number (NAP) citations
  • Add your business to local directories
  • Get reviews and add them to your site
  • Identify local search terms and insert them into your content
  • Claim your Google My Business Page

Responsive or dynamic?

Perhaps the most important decision you’ll make when it comes to mobile-friendly SEO optimisation is the type of mobile site configuration you use when setting up your site. You can choose between a dynamic serving or a responsive web design. Although Google tends to favour a responsive design, both options come with their pros and cons.

Responsive web design

The commonly recommended way of implementing a mobile-friendly website is the responsive web design setup. In this configuration, the web server sends the same HTML code to all users, irrespective of whether they’re using a desktop, tablet, or smartphone.

The code and content respond to each individual user, for example, adjusting to different screen sizes.

The main advantages of using a responsive web design setup include:

  • Crawling of your website is more efficient, which improves the overall SEO of the site
  • Your website loads quicker as there is no redirection for users on different devices
  • Less chance of errors and mistakes resulting from poor device detection, URL redirection and displaying content, resulting in improved user experience

Dynamic web design

In the dynamic serving configuration, the URL remains the same for different devices, but the HTML/CSS file changes. This means that mobile and desktop users are presented with different content from the same URL.

The issue with this option is that device detection is dependent on a number of factors, some of which are often flawed and can lead to errors. As a result, it can cause the wrong versions of the web page to be displayed, ruining the user experience and sabotaging your mobile SEO efforts.

With this in mind, nowadays, most websites are configured using the responsive design setup. So, if you’re still using a dynamic web design, we’d recommend switching to improve your mobile-friendly SEO.

Seamless navigation

It should be super easy for visitors to explore your website, even if they’re searching on a mobile device. They should feel no difference whether they’re accessing your site on desktop, mobile or tablet.

For example, there should be adequate screen-tapping space for fingers. Two clickable elements should be separated by enough space to avoid confusion or incorrect clicking. Also, all buttons on your site menus must be neatly arranged, corresponding to the device screen size.

Don’t block CSS, Javascript or HTML

Blocking assets like CSS, Javascript, and HTML makes it more difficult for Google to access your site which could lead to a slip in rankings. You can check to see if you’re blocking any of these resources using your Google Search Console account.

Optimise titles and meta descriptions

It’s important to remember that you’re working with a lot less space when optimising mobile sites for SEO. So, to show off your best work in the SERPs, be as concise as possible when creating titles, URLs and meta descriptions.

How to check if your site is mobile-friendly

To check the mobile-friendliness of your site, either before or after you start optimising, you can use a variety of useful tools to gain useful insights. Some of the most effective include:

Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test

Using Google’s mobile-friendly test, you can either paste in your website’s URL or a specific code snippet, and Google will let you know whether the input is mobile-friendly or not.

If there are issues with your site’s mobile SEO, it will also highlight some of these, so you know which areas you need to focus on optimising.

Google’s Mobile Usability Tool

Another free tool from Google, the mobile usability tool can be found in your Google Search Console account.

Simply log into your GSC account and select “Mobile Usability”. If your website does have any errors, it will be shown under “Details”. The type of errors and the number of pages affected will also be shown.

Also, find out how to measure SEO success.

Conclusion

Mobile is the new normal – it is the baseline by which Google judges your website and assesses its suitability for search query rankings. So, if you’re trying to improve the visibility and ranking of your website, do NOT ignore the power of mobile SEO.

Do everything you can to fix the SEO for your mobile site and make it perfect, not just in Google’s eyes, but, more importantly, your visitors. After all, mobile SEO is not just about great content and a flawless technical profile but more about creating a killer user experience. By following our mobile SEO best practices, you’re sure to be on your way to the top!

Find out more about our SEO services and get in touch today. Or, to learn more about digital marketing, visit our blog.

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