Has the traffic to your website declined? If you said “yes,” it could be that you’re being penalized by Google search engine rankings because your site isn’t mobile-friendly.
Besides being mobile-friendly for search, you also want to be where your customers are. Now, more than 60 percent of all searches are made on a mobile device. Plus, responsive sites give the viewer the best experience no matter how the site is viewed. Essentially, you optimize your site for smartphones.
Mobile-sties are responsively designed, so the site reacts to the size of the user’s device. That means just one URL and one content source. Plus, you can consolidate analytics, tracking and reporting in one place.
Rankings are important, so that people looking for your product or service see it near the top of your search. A mobile-friendly site is your entry to a higher ranking. You also need to identify keywords to improve your search engine optimization (SEO), but that’s another post.
And, a mobile-friend site is important to your customers. Some 72 percent expect websites to work on mobile platforms, and some 61 percent leave sites that aren’t mobile-friendly. Perhaps more importantly, 85 percent of adult users expect a mobile site to be as good as a desktop site. And, 75 percent of online adults access the Internet through both desktop and mobile applications.
You strive to stay ahead of your competition. Don’t let the lack of a mobile-friendly site give them an advantage. Earlier this year, Danny Sullivan, the editor of the SearchEngineLand website, estimated that 40 percent of all sites are not mobile- friendly. At the same time, 44 percent of Fortune 500 companies were not mobile-friendly, according to Website TechCrunch.
Maybe your company sells to other companies and you think mobile is only for retailers. Take a look around your lobby some time and see how many people are on their phones while they’re waiting for an appointment. Or scan a business meeting before it gets started, how many phones are being used?
For Malcolm Gladwell fans, we’re past the tipping point when it comes to mobile. It’s no longer a trend – it’s a reality. It’s just as important, and sometimes more important, than the desktop.
Here’s a bonus tip: You likely know that you need to avoid content that requires Adobe’s Flash Player, because that also reduces your search engine ranking. What you may not know is that old YouTubes and other video embeds were probably done with that technology. Take time to update them to a more modern iframe embed method that’s the default on most video hosting sites today.
