Google AdWords Mobile

The Importance of Mobile Friendly Websites

With the increasing pressures of marketing and advertising steadily on the rise, older ad platforms are rapidly becoming obsolete. The push for an edge in the mobile advertising realm is feeding the fires of innovation. So much so that Google eliminated PPC ads from the right side of the SERP, in a massive leap towards a 'mobile first' thought process on AdWords.

In May of 2015, Google announced that mobile search volume surpassed desktop search volume for the first time in 10 countries, including Japan and the United States. The following year Google Adwords for IOS was launched. The trend seems obvious.
So what does this mean for your business?

Well first off, if you don't own a mobile device, stop reading, buy one and put your walk-man and Commodore 64 up for sale on Let-Go or Offer UP. Not now but RIGHT NOW! Secondly, it’s time to take a hard look at how your customers interact with your website. Consumers expect a certain amount of ease when browsing the web so having a mobile responsive site is a must. Furthermore being able to reach out to your clientele via mobile nowadays, is an essential ability that you must take advantage of fully.

There are several different types of mobile ads and you create them explicitly for mobile phones or tablets. Depending on your goal this can be on video, text, or call-only. The ads will appear within other apps or even on YouTube. Ever get annoyed by some commercial before you watch the video you searched on YouTube? Me too! Tired of 'Uber' ads popping up in the middle of 'Bubble Bash' or 'Candy Crush'? Well, you can thank the brilliant developers over at big brother Google! That's Mobile Adwords at its finest. AdMob, which was purchased by Google, is a platform used to monetize your mobile applications. Combining their superpowers with Google prompted the birth of mobile app install campaigns. Adwords uses keywords and custom targeting based on your app ID, precisely to get you to download applications. As technology evolves, more features are developed to guide you down the rabbit hole. Critical updates are being made to improve mobile load time. Landing Pages and AMP Mobile Ads are providing advertisers the ability to speed up search and display ads. According to Google, "we have found that these ads load up to 5 seconds faster than regular ads even though the creative looks exactly the same."

The competition to dominate mobile SERP is not for the faint of heart. If that is a goal for yourself or your company, you have to take advantage of all Google's new mobile ad features.

"Mobile is undoubtedly the future, and Google Adwords Mobile is that 82' DeLorean. Are you Marty McFly?"

"Wait...does that make me Doc?"

"But I'm from Detroit! Does that make Detroit, Hill Valley?"

Long story short, if you’re in business for yourself or your business is other peoples business, Adwords Mobile is your friend. Coupled with AdMob, AdSense, and of course Adzzup, your online paid search life just got easier!

How to make your site Mobile Friendly

As we all know Google rolled out it’s update to push for mobile friendly pages. If you didn’t know this then your scratching your head trying to figure out why you dropped in the rankings overnight. Well, here’s why. Google's update punished any website that didn’t meet the new mobile friendly criteria. This instantly decreased a sites ranking in mobile search results. As I said before, Mobile is the future and the future is now.

In the past, designing sites for mobile, content was cut to fit onto mobile devices. Another workaround was creating two separate sites, 1 for mobile and 1 for desktop. The thing is two different sites with the same content is only going to get you dinged by Google for duplicate content. To alleviate that problem is having your developers use responsive design on your website. Responsive design allows the page to react to a users screen size and adjust the layout to fit. So if we are keeping track, first don't create a seperate website for mobile, second use a responsive design to fit all your potential users screens. Hear, let me make it a little easier for you:

1. Create one site, using Responsive Design to fit the screen sizes of all users.
2. Font Size: Users on mobile need a larger font size. 14px is what to shoot for, that way users don't have to zoom in to be able to read what you want them to read
3. Make sure to implement high resolution images. The latest mobile devices have high definition screens. If you don’t want the pixel monster striking and pixelating all your images.
4. Large buttons are a must on mobile. Leave no doubt by using larger button sizes for CTA, or risk the chance your user misses it.
5. No Auto zoom needed. Use the viewport meta tag and set up variables in your content. Removing the default zoom will keep images and your navigation content from appearing too large or small.

Using these tips will get you going in the right direction when it comes to Google's Mobile First agenda. There are many other ways to go about optimizing for mobile, so the best tip I can give you is to test, test then test again. Regardless of what any SEO guru tells you, the best way to get locked in is to follow the data. A/B testing and using all the data and analytic tools at your disposal is the only sure fire way to get the results you want and need.

Mobile First websites is something we all have to get used to. It's the way we interact with the internet most so Google is adjusting to enrich the user experience. As a developer, SEO specialist or just a business owner doing their weekend warrior thing has to step it up. In order to continue to rank or even begin to get those first page positions, think and design for Mobile First.

In the end it's all about User Experience and Mobile First is just another rung on the ladder to optimal user interaction. Technology as a whole is headed in that direction. From OK Google to Siri, voice commands on mobile is the initial foray into the coveted world of AI. I don’t think it's a stretch to say so, and definitely don’t have a problem with the idea of forward thinking. Why not? You don’t believe me you can always Google it.