As mobile device usage continues to climb, making sure your website is optimized for mobile users has never been more important. In case you aren’t sure what ‘mobile optimized’ means, it’s having your website adapt and display properly no matter the screen size.
Have you ever browsed the internet on your smartphone and come across a website you need to pinch, zoom or double tap to view the text at proper size? This is a website that isn’t optimized. Generally speaking, mobile optimized websites take up the full screen of a smartphone, are 1 column, and the text and content is easy to view. It’s obvious which site is easier to use and leads to a better user experience.
Site optimization is becoming so important that Google is now factoring this into their algorithm, and will start ranking websites that aren’t optimized lower in their search results than those that are. Right now they aren’t penalizing too strongly, but over time we can expect they will. This will lead to a decrease in visitors to your website from Google, which will directly effect your bottomline. Never a good thing!
Google also released a study they performed on usage behaviour of Canadian mobile users. We’ve put together some of the key findings below that further prove how important having a mobile ready site is.
People are making their smartphones their go to device for searching, as 8/10 searches occur at home or work, and 80% happen when they have access to a computer. The convenience and ease of use is a major factor in this. The data shows a good portion of these searches are goal oriented so it’s important for small businesses to have strong call to actions on their websites.
Mobile search and business outcomes go hand in hand. You can see how 37% of the searches lead to a valuable outcome for businesses.
These are just some of the reasons outlined why making sure your website is mobile optimized and important care is taken in the mobile version itself. Be sure to read the full survey and results over on Google.