The continuous tilt towards the use of mobile devices for searching and researching information has not only changed how web marketers optimize to rank better on search engine results.
It has also forced a lot of users the begin to rethink of how we can best engage mobile users. For the very long moment that desktop use dominated the internet, the content presentation didn’t change much.
However, since the sudden move towards mobile devices, so many things are fast changing about content marketing and how it should be done. If you don’t make your content “mobile-friendly,” then you should expect it to be less likely to get to your audience. The change doesn’t seem to be slowing down, showing the need for extra work.
The recent update on Google’s mobile algorithm has helped to make this shift more obvious. Today, a lot of people are researching how they can make their websites more mobile-friendly. You’ve probably found yourself make such researches too.
To be honest, you will find the most information about this beneficial. However, the bulk of the information online focuses more on-site presentation and less on the content itself.
The question to ask now is if the mobile content should be different from desktop contents.
Certainly not! The content that you are serving to your mobile visitors should be nearly identical to what you will serve your desktop visitors, except for presentation methods.
What Is The Difference?
One of the most significant differences between contents for desktop and content for mobile is the presentation. Because of the size of desktop screens, they tend to display more content at once compared to smartphones. This has caused a lot of people to believe that smaller screens demand fewer contents.
If you have your visitors in mind while writing your content, and want a better user experience for them, then changing content for mobile devices would be incredibly foolhardy. If, however, you are focused on SEO, without considering your visitors’ needs, it will still be foolhardy to put the content on your mobile site.
Where You Should Face
You’ve read already that the dependence on mobile has increased directly, but it is essential to point out that desktop still has a better retention rate. If you use the bounce rate metrics and time spent on a website as criteria, then the desktop would be the way to go.
However, with so many users moving to mobile, it now all makes sense that lots of marketers are turning to mobile as the main screen when creating their marketing plan. For starters, you need to understand the difference between the structure of desktop and that of mobile.
Target Audience Differ Based on Device
You need to realize that each device targets a particular audience better. Mobile devices, for instance, are used when people are on the move. This is basically because of the ease of carrying around that mobile devices offer. For desktops, it is a different situation.
The difference that exists in both cases generally causes a contrast in the behavior of users. It is this contrast that is responsible for time spent on the website as well as bounce rates.
When users use their mobile to access a website, the primary intent most times is to get the information they seek through short-form content. They do this because time availability is usually less, especially when on the move. Hence, every content marketer needs to focus on trying to deliver as much info as possible in a short time when building their mobile marketing strategy.
On the other hand, desktop users can go better with long-form content because they are mostly more relaxed when using this medium. The question to ask yourself now is, how many people still use desktops to search for information?
Apart from office settings, you will hardly find anybody using desktops when searching for information online. A lot of people have moved to mobile, and we can’t stop the trend.
During a quick research into the operation of different industries, we found that desktop content is the best when the targets are businesses operating in the finance and entertainment sector.
However, when the focus begins to shift towards the social media and gaming sectors, then the preferred device has to change.
For digital marketers, this creates the need to incorporate more visual communication in their mobile content marketing strategy than they would ordinarily do for desktop content.
The Place of Voice Search
Another area to look at when reviewing the methods that users adopt to access content is in the way they put their queries in the search box. For desktop users, two separate queries would basically be created for two different queries. We’ve even seen cases where websites lose visitors because they fail to come back after going back to the search box to make a new query for the next question.
On the other hand, the presence of voice search in mobiles creates the possibility of consolidating two queries into one. So, if you are looking to optimize your mobile content marketing strategies, then it would be essential to turn your attention to the creation of content that provides answers to multiple similar queries. This way, you can reduce the effort of both the website and the user, enhancing the mobile experience.
Mobile Content Marketing Strategy – Way to Go!
To reap the full benefits that mobile content marketing offers, it makes a lot of sense to get your content beefed up with a lot of ‘locally rich’ data. There’s so much to do, from the use of targeted keywords to incorporating Google maps. Your efforts towards local SEO would help to give you better visibility in Google’s SERP. Additionally, Google has recently begun to give a push to local content, and this can only mean that local optimization would help to boost your online presence.
By digging a little deeper, we found that local content optimization also means that part of the focus would shift towards voice search optimization. Remember that voice search can provide instant answers to questions without the need to type. So it will be good to combine voice and local search.
How to Optimize Content For Mobile View
To help you navigate content marketing in today’s world, we will be reviewing two sure methods that work for optimizing content for mobile use.
· Optimized Text
To create content that will be mobile-friendly, you must first understand the pattern that people adopt to read content on their mobile devices.
Once you are able to understand the reading pattern of your audience, then you will be able to optimize your text to fit into your findings. The general step to follow include:
Write short headlines, so that it doesn’t take up most of the screen’s space.
The top of your content after your headline should include a summary of what the whole content is about.
Make the body of your content as easy to digest as possible. Make use of tools like images, subheadings, short paragraphs, summary, and shorter sentences to make your content more easily digestible.
· Optimize Images
From the first point above, we’ve already seen the place of images in making content more readable on mobile devices. As much as possible, add graphics, screenshots, memes to give your content the visual punch that will keep users interested. You must, however, ensure that your images as optimized for mobile if you want it to be as useful as you want.
There’s a big difference between mobile content marketing and desktop content marketing. This difference stems from the nature of the devices and the behavior of users of both. Indeed, mobile usage has surpassed desktop usage by a wide margin creating the need for marketers to think mobile content marketing. We cannot completely write off the desktop, however, considering the quality of interaction it offers.
