Do Google changes in 2012 re-up the conflict between SEO and mobile design?

I have written elsewhere lately that I am hopeful that design and SEO, in 2012, are closer than they have ever been. However, Google changes make me question this.

Among Google’s many changes this year, one thing that seems like more of a constant than ever is the big G’s love of long content pages (especially if they are from Wikipedia, as always!) Panda updates routinely target thin content pages and Penguin favors sites with authority (among other factors).

The EMD update of last month takes favor away from exact match domains and is another quill in the cap for brand sites and big authoritative websites.

If you run a website hoping for search engine and mobile traffic, how do you create web pages that will get found by search engines and also viewed for any length of time on mobile devices?

People on iPhones and other touchscreen mobile devices are not likely going to read your scrolly web article (like this one). So when you are putting content online do you plan for mobile or for SEO?

The division has grown again, I think… thanks to Google (again). The easy way around this is to make some content friendly for mobiles, images, memes and other things that people are likely to share and view on smartphones – and others ideal for SEO – long content posts with hyperlinks in and out – but you have to strike a balance and you have to be savvy about both.

Responsive design will only get you so far

All the responsive design in the world is not going to increase the time-on-page for long webpages that are simply not going to be read on a mobile device. If people come to your site because of a catchy image then click around to find a long page of written content there goes your time-on-page.

It’s just another conundrum we face as strategists, writers and designers.

I’d be interested in comments that discuss how others work around considerations for mobile users and other marketing considerations, especially SEO.

Here are some questions on my mind…

Is there any evidence that Google takes into account the very different attention span of mobile users?

Shouldn’t Google actually serve different search results on mobile devices?

Correct me if I’m wrong but Google makes no hard and fast distinctions between SERPS on a mobile device vs. SERPs on a PC (related to whether or not content is actually mobile friendly) and I see nothing about this in  their mobile playbook.

Related posts

Google’s Take on Mobile Search and What Websites Must Do

Google’s 19th Birthday Surprise Spinner

What You Need to know about Google’s Featured Snippets?

5 comments

Quality Seo Services November 13, 2012 - 7:19 pm
Google has recently launched an update for its search engine's algorithm called Penguin update. The main reason behind this is remove rehashed content and websites that overly optimized they keywords so that Google will not look as a spammy search engines.
Buy Facebook Likes November 15, 2012 - 4:43 am
Google has changed its search algorithm and now it gives more respect to quality websites then low scoring website which have links from spam websites and so on. Many websites rankings has affected due to new algorithm.
buy silver coins November 16, 2012 - 11:31 am
i thought that was common knowledge about Google penalising sites which link to spam and that's what the update was for?
business logo designs November 29, 2012 - 1:14 am
I was still confuse about mobile SEO designs and to be honest i didn't make a mobile design version. After read your post i got good knowledge about the technicalities regarding mobile SEO.
Mediumship Readings November 29, 2012 - 7:24 am
I like the new algorithm by google, My sites are ranking much better now that the spammy sites have been removed.
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