W
ebsite searches on mobile devices – Androids
and iPhones – are now more common than
those conducted on tablets and desktop computers,
says Google.
1
Once a nice-to-have, a mobile-friendly
website has quickly become an essential. To ignore this
trend can be risky business for small and medium-sized
organizations for two big reasons:
1. Smartphone searchers have a need for speed.
Forty-six percent of mobile users expect the load time
on a phone to be as fast as their desktop, while 12%
expect it to be even faster.
2
The same research notes
that most smartphone users will wait only six to 10
seconds for a website to load before abandoning a page
– presumably to search for the next alternative.
If the possibility of losing customers to your competitors
isn’t reason enough to consider a mobile-optimized
website, there’s one more … and it’s a doozy.
2. Google plays favorites.
Earlier this year, Google
changed its search algorithms to favor sites that are
mobile optimized. Dubbed “Mobilegeddon,” this
development means that mobile-friendly websites gain
higher search rankings when shoppers look online for
products or services.
While some early reports questioned the impact,
later evidence suggested otherwise. One small survey
conducted four weeks after the change noted that
mobile-friendly websites received 32% more organic or
unpaid mobile traffic than sites that didn’t display well
on mobile devices.
3
And in a study of more than 50,000
websites a month after the changes kicked in, Stone
Temple Consulting found mobile-friendly sites gained in
the rankings while non mobile-friendly URLs dropped.
4
The good news? Optimizing your site for mobile users
isn’t rocket science. Here are a few tips on how to
accomplish it:
•
Implement a responsive design.
They
automatically render the site in the optimum
format by recognizing the device upon which it
will be viewed. With it, mobile sites will display
in narrower, vertical columns for smartphones as
opposed to the wider columns better viewed on
tablets and desktops.
•
Lighten the load.
Accelerate the loading time of
your mobile website by avoiding large image files
and pages not relevant to mobile searchers who
typically want the basics, like location information,
hours of operation and key products or services.
•
Move rather than “remodel.”
Instead
of retrofitting your HTML site to improve
responsiveness, move it to a more compatible
content management system such as Drupal,
Joomla or WordPress.
•
Test it for performance.
As you build your mobile-
optimized site, Google’s mobile-friendly test
tool will enable you to see how your new pages
perform. Use this data to guide your design.
•
Test it again and again.
Before going “live,”
test your new website on a variety of smartphones
as well as different mobile carriers. It’s better
that you discover any design flaws – before your
customers do.
When you’re ready to optimize your site for mobile
use, give us a call. We can help.
n
Hold the Phone!
Mobile-friendly website
is a marketer’s must-have
1
It’s Official: Google Says More Searches Now on Mobile than on Desktop, Searchengineland.com, May 5, 2015
2
How Loading Time Affects Your Bottom Line, kissmetrics.com
3
Google’s Mobile Update: Data from 4 Weeks Out, May 19, 2015, s360.dk
4
Google’s ‘Mobilegeddon’ Was a Big Deal, After All, July 15, 2015, wsj.com
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