Mobile Campaign – Google Best Practices

Last Updated on 6 Jul 2020 by SEO Manager

Just because you can see your desktop website on a mobile phone doesn’t mean that it’s mobile-friendly. People who use high-end mobile devices, like iPhones or Android phones, can see standard AdWords ads and standard websites. But other possible customers use WAP mobile phones, which can only view specially designed mobile websites.

To reach the most mobile customers, it helps to create a mobile website that’s tailored to the small screen and makes it easy for people to make a purchase or take other action on your site.

When designing your site, keep in mind mobile best practices, like simple navigation and highlighting local options of your business. If you’d like to reach customers with WAP phones, you’ll also need to use mobile-friendly code to create your site.

Reaching mobile customers using a normal (HTML) website

Regardless of whether you have a mobile website, AdWords will let you show text ads to customers using Google Search on a high-end mobile device, like an iPhone or Android phone. These “smart phones” have a full Internet browser (like a desktop computer), so a customer who clicks your standard-sized text ad from the search results page can visit your standard website written with HTML.

By default, AdWords opts your new campaigns into “all available devices,” which includes these “mobile devices with full browsers.” You can opt in or out of showing ads on “Mobile devices with full browsers” from each campaign’s Settings tab.

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Keep in mind…

If you opt in, make sure that your landing page doesn’t contain Flash content. Flash is currently not supported on iPhones or iPads, and has only limited support on Android and other high-end mobile devices. If our system detects that your landing page has lots of Flash content, we’ll automatically limit your ads from running on high-end mobile devices.

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Target a device

Nowadays, many mobile devices have standard browsers, but some feature phones lack a full browser and can only view mobile-specific webpages. To reach customers on these devices, you’ll need to create a WAP [mobile ad] and a WAP-friendly mobile website, which we’ll talk about more below.

Best practices for designing a mobile site

When creating a mobile website, you’ll want to keep in mind a few strategies that best take advantage of the small size of mobile screens and the behavior of mobile users. These strategies can help make sure your mobile site is a great experience for customers and direct them to take the desired actions on your site.

Keep it quick

  1. Reduce large blocks of text and use bullet points.
  2. Compress images to keep them small for faster site loading.

Make it easy to buy something or contact you.

  1. Reduce the number of steps needed to complete a transaction.
  2. Keep forms short, with the fewest number of fields possible.
  3. Use check boxes, lists, and scroll menus to make data entry easier.
  4. Use click-to-call functionality for all phone numbers.

Simplify navigation

  1. Minimize scrolling and keep it vertical only.
  2. Use a clear hierarchy in menus and avoid rollovers.
  3. Help customers navigate between levels with clear back and home buttons.
  4. Use seven links or fewer per page of navigation.
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Help people find and get to your local sites

  1. Have your address or store locator on the landing page.
  2. Include maps and directions. Use GPS to personalize when possible.
  3. Allow customers to check stock at nearby stores.

https://support.google.com/adwords/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2549057