Approximately 75% of the global population has a mobile phone. With numbers like that, it's more essential than ever to have a mobile-optimized website. But just how important is a mobile optimized website?
Here's a rundown on mobile-friendly websites: what they are and why they're so important for your business.
A mobile-friendly website is a website that can be easily used on mobile phones and tablets. This might mean you have a mobile-only version of your traditional website or, more likely, your website is built responsive.
Responsive websites are the current best-practice in website design. They ensure you're only maintaining one version of your website and that that version is able to be viewed and used no matter the device it's accessed on.
October 2016 saw mobile traffic finally overtake desktop traffic. This means for the past 3 years, the majority of internet users have been accessing our content via mobile devices.
An estimated 57% of all web traffic is mobile with that number expected to grow seven-fold by 2021. With numbers like that, 2019 should be the year you up your mobile-friendly game.
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Mobile usage is up and Google has taken notice. As of right now, Google indexing is determined by the content of the mobile version of our websites. This means your site's SEO relies on the usability and content of your site as it appears on mobile phones and tablets.
Historically, Google used the desktop version of a website to evaluate the relevance of a page to a given query. This meant that even when searching on mobile, the results were determined by the content of a website's desktop version. But not anymore.
Google's bot will now crawl and index pages with the smartphone agent. This means if your website isn't optimized for mobile, your Google rank is likely suffering.
It's not only Google that's judging you based on the content of your mobile website. Your customers are doing it too. And with more and more people accessing websites via mobile, that's a lot of judgment.
Two-thirds of mobile users say a mobile-friendly website influences whether or not they'll make a purchase. 74% say they're more likely to return to a site if it's mobile-optimized.
And even if you have loyal customers? Half of them are likely to use your site less if it doesn't work well on their mobile phone.
The numbers are in and they're clear: mobile optimization is an essential cog in your sales machine.
Mobile-optimized websites are no longer a nice-to-have. With mobile usage growing, Google prioritizing mobile content, and customers judging your business based on how easy it is to use on mobile, 2019 should be the year your SEO strategy prioritizes mobile-friendly design and development.
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