5 Smart Mobile SEO Strategies to Reach Millennials

‘Kids’ born between 1984 and 2004, called millennials, are not kids anymore. Well, not when it comes to marketing potential.

Millennials are believed to spend $200B every year; is it any wonder that digital marketers want to know everything under the sun about how they can market their brands to these high-value audiences?

Let’s cover some smart mobile SEO strategies to reach millennials.

1- Be Mobile Friendly at All Costs

61% of users won’t return to a website that is awkward to use on a mobile device, and 40% will go to a competitor’s website because of this. Clunky web experience on mobile devices is a ‘stay away from us’ sign for your website. Responsive website themes are just the starting point of the mobile-friendly user experience that helps you win over millennials. Here are the key things to know and do:

• Use web designers and developers and get your web assets 100% mobile ready.
• Designing a web experience for mobile requires careful planning; hire an expert mobile web developer and designer.
• Optimize web pages for fast loading speeds as far as mobile devices are concerned.
• Leverage Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) framework (it’s open source) to quickly develop mobile-optimized advertisements, landing pages, and websites.
• Use this Mobile-Friendly Test for testing your website’s mobile readiness.

2- Social Media via Mobile – The Perfect Recipe for Success with Millennials

Social media marketing is a massive component of wholesome SEO. Facebook recently released a stat, suggesting that more than half of millennial users used their mobile device to access profiles and pages. A MarketingLand report suggests that almost 80% of social media time is spent using mobile devices. So, it’s time to marry the mobile-first components of social media with SEO.

• Leverage social content formats such as Instagram Stories, check-ins, live video, etc. to reach millennial users.
• Create strong communication mechanisms to enable millennials to interact with your brands using social media.
• Post direct messages to millennials and quickly respond to comments in a humane tone.
• Treat followers with respect, and create value adding and entertaining content for easy consumption on mobile devices.
• Deep dive into the mobile-specific feature and functionalities offered by different social media platforms and leverage them before the competitor does.

3- Avoid Common Mobile SEO Mistakes that Miff Millennials

Here are the biggest mistakes to avoid when working on mobile SEO targeted at millennials.

• Make sure that CSS, images, and JavaScript are not blocked for Google bot so that the content can be rendered easily on mobile devices.
• Don’t forget to create effective web analytics dashboards so that you can regularly review the data that is most important for your business.
• Make sure your in-page media is playable across the device.
• Google penalizes pages that push interstitial pop-ups when the user opens the web page first; so don’t make pop-ups a nuisance for Google and for your millennial audiences.  
• Conduct rigorous mobile website tests to ensure that pages don’t load slowly; the average millennial’s attention span is less than that of a goldfish, so you can’t really afford it.

4- Mobile Searches and Micro Moments

Millennials are driving search volumes on mobile instead of desktops and laptops. Not only are mobile search queries worded differently, but the medium of choice is voice in 20% of searches. Mobile searches are backed by intent and urgency. Google tries to capture the varying degrees and directions of intent and urgency in what’s called micro-moments:

• I-want-to-know moments
• I-want-to-go moments
• I-want-to-do moments
• I-want-to-buy moments

To capture users’ attention for each of these 4 micro-moments, there are specific SEO strategies (outside the scope of this guide) for you to learn and execute.

5- Leverage the Power of Local

Queries done with local intent create a massive opportunity for brands that are able to reinvent SEO strategies to include these local elements. For instance, a search for a ‘good bike repair shop’ in New York will show your search result if you take care of creating ample local SEO signals. Here’s what you can do:

• Create a detailed Google My Business webpage, with all the necessary details, and a long description of your service.
• Get as many reviews as possible, even if you have to pass on massive incentives to get the initial traction.
• Maintain NAP (Name, Address, and Place) consistency across all your digital marketing efforts.
• Google values listings with photos, and millennials like it too.
• Use schema markup to add more detailed information about your business.

Final Thoughts

SEO is constantly evolving and marketers are regularly trying to woo audiences with innovative strategies. Apply Google algorithm updates on a daily basis for SEO purposes to get that impressive search result share.