Make Your Website “Google Mice” Compliant ASAP, and avoid losing 50% or more of your traffic and potential customers!
You may ask, “What is ‘Google Mice’, anyway?” In a nutshell, it is an algorithm update that ranks mobile-friendly websites higher on mobile search results.
If you seek to increase your site traffic and convert more leads to actual customers, it’s high time that you heed Google’s call to go mobile-friendly. Now is your chance to rank on Google Mobile Searches through “Google Mice” compliance!
What is a Mobile-Friendly Website?
Studies have shown that there are now more mobile Internet users than desktop users, making it more important than ever for businesses to have a mobile-friendly website in place.
There are many elements that make up a mobile-friendly website:
- Texts are NOT too small to read
- Links are NOT too close together
- Images and videos are scalable; videos are playable
- Mobile viewport is set
A Mobile-Friendly Website is Built on a Responsive Web Design Framework
Responsive Web Design adapts itself to multiple screen sizes using the same URL, the same page, the same content, and the same code.
Having a Responsive Web Design means that your website responds to, or adjusts simultaneously to the size of the screen of various devices: a desktop computer, a laptop, a tablet, or a smartphone.
The key features of a Responsive Web Design are the following:
- Flexible grid
- Flexible image
- CS3 media queries and screen resolution
Why Go with a Mobile-Friendly Website?
If your website doesn’t load properly on devices like smartphones or tablets, your potential customers won’t be able to learn more about your products and services and buy from you. eMarketer reveals that the number of smartphone users worldwide is bound to surpass 2 billion in 2016. By 2018, the number will rise to almost 3 billion.
The message is simple: Your website must be mobile-friendly or a huge number of your visitors or potential customers will bounce off your website!
Mobile Internet Users have Outnumbered Desktop Internet Users
Let’s face it: In today’s world, we are doing almost everything on mobile. Year after year, there is a stable increase in the number of people who use mobile Internet instead of desktop.
According to a report by comScore, the number of mobile-only Internet users has already surpassed the number of desktop-only users. Indeed, you cannot simply ignore the ever-growing number of mobile users when marketing your products and services. You need to find a way to cater to their needs. You need to build a mobile-friendly website for your business.
Mobile Device Usage is Increasing
According to recent studies, smartphones and tablets pushed overall time spent online by 93% in just three years. Today smartphones and tablets drive nearly 3 out of 5 minutes spent with digital media.
Global Share of Mobile Web Traffic has been Skyrocketing
Consumers all over the globe are being increasingly dependent on mobile. The Asia Pacific region tops the list with the most share of mobile web traffic (39.1%), followed by the North American region (15.7%), Central and Eastern Europe (14.4%), Middle East and Africa (12.5%), Western Europe (9.9%), and Latin America (8.4).
Social Media Engagement on Mobile Devices and Tablets is High
Social media is a great way to build brand awareness and encourage customer support and loyalty. To learn more about your products and services, your potential customers are searching for you in various social platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn—and they do so using their mobile devices.
comScore indicates that more than half, or 55% of users choose mobile devices over PC for social networking. Fifty-three percent (53%) of smartphone users and 61% of tablet users read posts about you from people they know personally.
Your potential customers love to see interesting and compelling content about businesses. In fact, 37% of smartphone users and 51% of tablet users accessed photo and video sharing sites.
Forty-four percent (44%) of smartphone users and 49% of tablet users posted status updates. To broaden their knowledge about businesses, 39% of smartphone users and 47% of tablet users read status updates from organizations, companies, brands, events or products. Additionally, 37% of smartphone users and 46% of tablet users followed a link to a website posted by someone else.
Public figures and celebrities who are endorsing specific businesses on social media are also influential to mobile users, with 34% of smartphone users and 41% of tablet users reading their posts on their social accounts.
Twenty-seven percent (27%) of smartphone users and 35% of tablet users posted a link to a business website.
Lastly, 26% of smartphone users and 34% of tablet users received a coupon, offer or deal on their devices.
Mobile Usage has been Changing Market and Consumer Behavior
Purchases on mobile phones and tablets are set to double by 2018. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of smartphone searches and 64% of tablet searches for local business information result in a purchase, compared to just 61% of desktop searches.
Your Competitors are Going Mobile-Friendly
More and more of your competitors are converting their non-responsive websites to mobile-friendly ones, with 46% currently doing it and 30% planning to do it in less than 12 months.
The percentage of your colleagues who implement mobile applications, mobile versions of email, mobile messaging campaigns, location-based targeting, and mobile ads are also on the rise.
What are the Disadvantages of Not Being Mobile-Friendly?
In a survey done by Sterling Research and SmithGeiger for Google, 36% of the respondents say that a non-mobile-friendly site wastes users’ time, while 48% say that it annoys and frustrates them. Meanwhile, 48% agree that a company whose website didn’t load properly on smartphones doesn’t care about their business.
As much as half (50%) of the survey respondents, say that they will use a site less if it is not mobile-friendly. On the other hand, 52% say they are unlikely to engage with a company whose site brought a bad mobile experience.
What are the Benefits of Going Mobile-Friendly?
Potential customers agree that a mobile-friendly website is one of the most important factors they consider when engaging with a business. Here are some of the benefits of having a mobile-friendly website:
- Your website looks great everywhere
- Users have no need to zoom on smaller devices to read your content
- Consistent and tailored user experience
- Wider browser support
- All pages are available on every device
It Provides Great User Experience
- No need to maintain multiple versions of your website
- No need to do SEO for multiple websites
- Efficient crawling and indexing of search engine robots
- Attain and maintain rankings on mobile searches
It Increases your Leads and Sales
- 74% of users are more likely to return to a mobile-friendly site
- 67% of users are more likely to buy if the site is mobile-friendly
- 62% of companies reported an increase in sales after designing a site for mobile users
- Mobile Commerce share of E-commerce sales will jump from 15% in 2013 to 30% in 2018
- 87% of smartphone and tablet owners use a mobile device for shopping activities
- 63% of searchers use mobile devices to find local businesses
- 81% of tablet owners use their device for local search
- 78% of searches on mobile phone end in a purchase
It’s Great for Businesses
- 1 in 3 mobile searches are local
- 59% of users visit local stores after searching on mobile Web
- 17% of auto searches are from mobile
- 15% of finance and insurance searches are from mobile
- 30% of restaurant searches are from mobile
It’s clear from these that customers are searching and buying online using their mobile devices. Thus, you need to be visible on Google mobile searches!
Provide great user experience to a growing number of mobile users who will visit your websites. Be accessible to mobile users who are searching for your products and services and who are ready to buy!
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