Mobile search is growing faster than ever, and search engines are taking notice. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile viewing, it should be. We’ll show you where to get started.
In June 2013, Google released its first algorithm update that said it would penalize websites that provide a poor mobile experience.
This was just the first of many algorithm updates, with Google continually reminding us that our websites should be mobile-friendly, both for the benefit of our customers and our own success.
In November 2014, Google said that not only would they penalize those websites that had negative mobile experiences but would also give preferential treatment to websites that were mobile-optimized when ranking them on search engine results.
Most recently, a blog entry from Google released on February 26, 2015, stated that on April 21, even more changes will be implemented, giving mobile-optimized websites the upper-hand in search engine results. So what does this mean?
If your website isn’t optimized for mobile viewing, it should be.
No matter what type of business you conduct, visitors are not only using their mobile devices to search for you but to purchase your products and services, whether it’s online or in a physical location.
According to a June 2014 study conducted by Nielsen¹, mobile devices account for up to 64% of time online, and 42% of mobile users consider mobile to be the most important resource in their purchase process. Additionally, 52% of respondents reported visiting a physical store as a result of mobile purchase research.
An August 2012 report from Google shows that 38% of all of our daily media interactions occur on a smartphone.² According to Statcounter,³ as of May 2014, mobile usage accounted for 25% of all internet usage globally, and 19% of all internet usage in North America. Not only that, but these numbers are growing. Just one year previous — in May 2013 — those statistics were 14% and 11%, respectively.
So we have plenty of data telling us that mobile users are a huge portion of our customer base. And, we have the search engines telling us that making it easy for those users to engage with our websites will yield better placement in search engine results, and therefore more traffic and potential customers visiting our website. Do we have you convinced? Good! Now it’s time to take action.
First, you can do a quick and easy check to see if your website has a mobile-friendly design, by using this Mobile-Friendly Test.
If your site is not mobile-friendly, your developer is the key to making this happen. Depending on the size of your website and the platform being used, this could be a fairly simple task or one that will take a bit more work. But remember the statistics! It will be worth it, we promise.
If you don’t have a developer, you can begin here to find out how to transform your website into a mobile-friendly design. If it’s just a bit over your head, we recommend contracting out the heavy lifting to a developer who understands responsive web design.
Check out our Partners page for developers we have worked with who can optimize your website for mobile. These developers are not only experts in responsive web design, but understand the importance of SEO, and work with us to ensure your mobile-optimized website is not only mobile-friendly but search engine friendly!
¹ xAd and Telmetrics Release 3rd Annual U.S. Mobile Path to Purchase Study Revealing Mobile Dominance in Consumers’ Purchase Decisions
https://www.prweb.com/releases/xad_and_telmetrics_release_3rd_annual_u_s_mobile_path_to_purchase_study_revealing_mobile_dominance_in_consumers_purchase_decisions/prweb11907976.htm
² The New Multi-screen World: Understanding Cross-platform Consumer Behavior
http://ssl.gstatic.com/think/docs/the-new-multi-screen-world-study_research-studies.pdf
³ Internet Trends Code Conference 2014
https://cryptome.org/2014/05/internet-trends-2014.pdf
About the Author
Nicole Vesota
Vice President & Project ManagerNicole has been working in online marketing since 2007 when she joined Top Of The List. She loves creative endeavors and spending time with her daughter.