Mobile SEO Resources

Essential Mobile SEO Resources

Originally appeared on Marketing Land.

The people, publications and tools that I consider to be essential for mobile SEO today. If you have any additions to this list you would like me to consider for this page, please DM me on Twitter and if I find it useful I will update the page.

People

Pierre Far

Pierre said at one point that he wants to be the Matt Cutts of mobile search, and along with Maile Ohye (and sometimes even Matt Cutts), that’s the role he plays at Google.  All of these people have been instrumental in clearing up the murky world of mobile SEO in recent years. Twitter

 

Cindy Krum

Cindy is the CEO and founder of Mobile Moxie and the author of Mobile Marketing: Finding Your Customers No Matter Where They Are, which contains quite a bit of info on mobile SEO.  She’s an industry veteran and a consistently good source on the subject of mobile SEO. Twitter

 

Michael Martin

Michael is an SEO Manager for Covario and a champion of dynamic serving. Michael has been speaking on panels with me and the others on this list on mobile SEO for years, and for good reason. He also writes frequently on mobile SEO in various publications, including Marketing Land. Twitter

 

Bryson Meunier

Contributor at Marketing Land, Search Engine Land and many other publications on mobile SEO, as well as a frequent speaker on the subject and author of this blog. Twitter

 

Barry Schwartz

Barry is well-known in the general SEO community, but he’s done quite a bit in the past couple years to make mobile SEO something that the general SEO community cares about. Twitter

 

Aleyda Solis

Frequent speaker on mobile SEO, and more recently global SEO, Aleyda is the principal consultant at Orainti. Twitter

 

Jason Spero

Jason is the head of performance media at Google, and the head of Global Mobile Sales and Strategy there since 2012. He’s the author of The Mobile Playbook, which contains a lot of Google’s ideas about mobility and business.

 

Greg Sterling

Greg is the first to say he’s not an expert on mobile SEO, but like Barry he has done more to make it visible to the general SEO and mobile community that most.  He also reports at the cutting edge of mobile search, giving mobile SEOs an idea of what’s coming. Twitter

 

Mobile SEO Google+ Group

With 474 members currently, there are a number of people in this group bringing up interesting problems and solutions when it comes to mobile SEO.

 

 

Publications

 

Google Smartphone Guidelines

Google’s official word on mobile site configurations and other problem areas when it comes to mobile SEO.

 

The Mobile Playbook

Intended for mobile advertisers, but with quite a bit of good advice from Google on providing a great mobile user experience.

 

MobiForge

Large mobile developer community with a lot of detailed information about developing accessible, usable, search engine-friendly mobile sites.

 

Marketing Land Mobile

Where thought leaders in mobile marketing and mobile search contribute weekly, including yours truly.

 

MobiThinking SEO Best Practices Guide 2014

I’m proud to have contributed to what is probably the biggest and most detailed free mobile SEO guide to have been recently updated.

 

Search Engine Land Mobile Search

Marketing Land’s sister site has quite a bit of great information related to mbile SEO, including Vanessa Fox’s popular guide to mobile technical SEO.

 

Smashing Magazine Mobile

Detailed implementation advice for developers. Includes my guide to SEO for responsive sites.

 

Google will never show Mobile Insider and Mobile Marketer for the query mobile SEO, as both publications are relevant to more than just SEO, focusing on mobile marketing in general; but both publications are essential for understanding how brands are making their mobile experiences uniquely valuable to consumers, which is really at the heart of SEO.

 

Bright Edge Mobile Share 2014

The most recent mobile share report has a lot of great info on what’s working for mobile SEO today. Spoiler alert: it’s not just responsive web design.  Requires contact information to download the entire report.

 

 

Mobile SEO Tools

 

General

 

Bright Edge

Includes smartphone and tablet rankings, as well as standard Bright Edge reporting for mobile search results.

 

Search Metrics

Includes traffic and rankings for smartphone and tablet.

Advanced Web Ranking

Includes mobile and local rankings

 

Mobile Moxie

Includes a whole suite of tools, including emulators, page speed tools and a script generator for proper mobile redirects. Free 30 day trial.

 

Pure Oxygen Mobile

Suite of mobile SEO tools, including a mobile site analyzer, mobile redirect viewer and mobile page analyzer.

 

Google Webmaster Tools

Information on your site directly from Google, including smartphone queries and crawl errors.

 

Spider

 

Deep Crawl

Enterprise SEO spider includes the ability to crawl by mobile user agents.

 

Fetch as Googlebot

Google Webmaster Tools allows you to fetch a page with Google’s crawler to see how it renders.

 

Screaming Frog

Like DeepCrawl, Screaming Frog allows paid subscribers to enter mobile user agents to crawl content as mobile devices.

 

Rob Hammond’s SEO Crawler

Free SEO Crawler that allows businesses to crawl 250 pages with smartphone Googlebot and identify errors.

 

User Agent Switcher/Emulators

 

User Agent Switcher for Chrome

There are various user agent switchers for Chrome, but this one gives the user a lot of flexibility. Useful for simulating smartphone or tablet search results from a desktop.

 

User Agent Switcher for Firefox

A good general user agent switcher for Firefox. Like the Chrome user agent switcher it gives the user a lot of flexibility, allowing her to enter user agents.

 

Prism

Emulators from MobilForge allow you to see what your content will look like on devices without buying the devices.

 

Keyword Research

 

Google Keyword Planner

As I mentioned in my column the past two months, Google Keyword Planner now has great charts for helping you determine which keywords are more likely to be searched from smartphones and tablets. Requires free AdWords login to use.

 

Bing Ads Intelligence

Using Bing Ads Intelligence within Excel is still the only way to get actual search volume numbers by device that I know of, since Google sunsetted the Keyword Tool.

 

Site Speed/Usability/Accessibility

All of these are great sites for improving the usability of your mobile site, including site speed, which has a direct impact on search results.

Google Page Speed Insights Tool

MobiTest from Akamai

GTMetrix

MobiReady

 

Mobile SEO Checklists

If you’re looking for a simple way to apply mobile SEO best practices to your site, start here.

Google’s Mobile Website Improvement Checklist

Moz Mobile Site Audit Checklist

 

Mobile Site Galleries

While not every site in these galleries is optimized for search, these site galleries can provide design inspiration and a valuable editorial source for getting new users to your site.

WebAward Best Mobile Site

Webby Award Mobile Site and App Winners

Mobile Awesomeness

Media Queries Responsive Gallery

Awwwards Responsive Gallery

JQuery Mobile Gallery