We’re all doing more and more on our mobile phones these days.
More people are using their mobile phones to access your website too. In fact, about one in two site visits are now carried out through a smartphone device.
This makes optimising your website for mobile phones more critical than ever before.
Here’s our guide to school mobile optimisation and mobile SEO for schools, and why it’s something all independent schools need to consider.
Why is school mobile optimisation such a big thing?
Have you ever tried to visit a website that looks great on desktop, but awful on mobile?
The text is too small to read, the images take too long to appear, and buttons and forms jump around while you wait for the website to load.
The odds are that you’ll give up and move on. According to Google, 79% of people that don’t like the mobile experience will look on another site. And it’s highly likely that site could belong to a competing local school.
A poorly optimised site doesn’t just mean fewer visits, fewer leads, and fewer enquiries. It can also harm your ranking in the search engines. In 2015, Google announced that it would start to treat mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal.
As a result, well-optimised sites would get nudged upward in the search engine results, while badly optimised sites would get pushed down.
Google (and other search engines) takes a yes/no approach to mobile friendliness. This means your pages are either mobile-friendly, or they aren’t – there’s no grey area. That’s why you need to do all you can when it comes to school mobile optimisation.
How can I tell if my website is optimised for mobile?
Testing your pages to see if they’re optimised for mobile SEO can be tricky, simply because they must be checked across a wide range of devices.
Your school website may look awesome on that older iPhone, but how does it look on a brand new model with a larger screen?
One of the best places to start regarding school mobile optimisation is Google’s Mobile-Friendly test.
Just copy and paste the URL you want to investigate, and you’ll receive not just recommendations, but also screenshots of how your site looks on mobile.
You can also use Google Search Console to see which pages on your website need a little more attention. Just sign in, select Mobile Usability, and Google will tell you which pages pass and fail when it comes to mobile-friendliness.
(As an aside, it’s worth signing up for Google Search Console if you’re not already on it. There are a lot of cool features – you can see which keywords your website is appearing for in the search engine results, as well as if you have any manual penalties.)
School mobile optimisation: the next steps
So, what can you do to ensure your website is as responsive on mobile as possible?
Here are some of our suggestions for optimising your independent school website for mobile SEO.
You’ll be able to implement most of these fixes yourself, but we recommend working with your web developer as they can suggest changes you can make behind the scenes too.
Want to know more about conducting an effective mobile SEO audit? We have you covered.
Make your website load more quickly
Large images, unnecessary extensions and bloated code can all make our web pages screech to a halt. And the slower your website loads on mobile, the more likely people are to give up and move on.
A good starting point is to look at the size of the images you use on your website. As a rule of thumb, keep all your images smaller than 500kb. Converting your images to JPG and reducing image quality from 100 to 75 can help as long as it still looks good.
If you use WordPress, look at the extensions you’ve downloaded. While these are great for adding functionality to your website, using too many can slow things down. Get rid of any you no longer use.
Your web development team will also be able to do things in order to make your site load more quickly, like implementing caching and optimising your website code. Run a report on PageSpeed Insights and pass it through to your tech team. Even if you don’t understand the findings, they will!
Review your pop-ups
Pop-up ads can be a great way to get people to complete a specific call to action and capture leads.
However, when done wrong, they can ruin the mobile experience for your website users.
In our experience, people don’t like pop-ups that are hard to close or cover the whole screen. By auditing and redeveloping your pop-ups to be more mobile-friendly, you can still get your visitor’s attention without getting them annoyed.
Format your pages for readability
It’s important to remember that on a mobile-responsive site, your font size will shrink significantly. And when your text is teeny-tiny, it can become much harder to read.
Formatting your page will make it easier to scan, meaning web users can scroll to the content they want.
- Break your text into small paragraphs
- Use bullet points and headings to make it easier to understand content
- Space links away from each other, so web users don’t accidentally click on the wrong URL
- A well-placed image can make your content more appealing (just make sure it’s optimised for size)
- Stick to standard fonts. While custom and creative fonts look nice, web users may need to download these fonts to their phones to view your content
- Remember that whitespace is your friend – it’s okay to have empty space to break up your page
Optimising your content for mobile can work wonders for your search engine ranking, too. The easier your pages are to read, the more returning visitors you get and the longer they spend on your site.
This means Google sees your website as more reliable and trustworthy!
Is it worth creating a mobile app for my school?
Our clients often ask us if it’s worth developing a mobile app for their independent school.
In our honest opinion, optimising your existing website for mobile devices is far more beneficial and easier (and cost effective).
The issue with a mobile app is that there is no guarantee that people will use it, taking you back to square one.
Do your market research, and if parents are interested in (and would actively use) a mobile app, then by all means, consider it. But remember that optimising your website should be the priority for increasing engagement, rankings and traffic.
Think ‘mobile first’, and you can’t go wrong!
In conclusion: don’t forget about optimising your school site for mobile!
You should now know more about the importance of school mobile optimisation.
Take the time to review your website, and you’ll be one step closer to improved search engine rankings, happier visitors and, most importantly, more open days and admissions!
Remember that if you are looking for ways to improve the SEO of your school website, our team of search engine optimisation experts is ready and raring to go! Find out more about our affordable search engine optimisation packages and school SEO services.