You have a nice website up with awesome content, photos, a blog, and links to your social media pages and mobile website. The senior partners are starting to relax about the whole social media thing and have stopped calling you webhead (or worse). This website project is done, right? No. Now you need to start optimizing content for your mobile website.
More People Are Searching On Mobile Devices
Before you start wondering if this is getting out of hand, take a look search statistics conducted on mobile devices like tablets and smartphones:
- Almost 74% of user’s time on tablets is spent searching
- 77% of all mobile searches are on tablets, whether at work or at home, and regardless of whether a PC is nearby
- 45% of mobile searches have a goal in mind
- 73% of mobile searches trigger follow-up actions like filling out a contact form
- 28% of mobile searches end in buying the product or service
As you can see, people using mobile devices are serious about searching. But are they the majority of the search market? Mobile devices rival PCs for online research. Half of the 2,000 mobile device owners surveyed by Nielsen for the study said they use a mobile device for preliminary research. Forty-six percent used mobile devices exclusively. Interestingly, the 2013 categories included insurance and banking/finance.
Mobile Devices And Local Searches
In addition, more consumers use mobile devices when searching for local services, according to the Path-to-Purchase study. Moreover, people searching for banking and finance services want them locally and 50% say they intend to get them within a month. It isn’t a stretch to make similar assumptions for those looking for accounting or legal services.
Finally, Google is doing more business in the mobile world. Its 2013 Q3 earnings were “a little muted,” Reuters reported, due to more ad sales in the mobile market where rates are lower than on PCs. Ad volume growth is outpacing the decline in [PC-based] pay-per-click, an analyst told the paper.
How To Optimize For Mobile Devices
Don’t be tempted to use a service to automatically convert your website into a mobile one. It will likely look crammed and be difficult to read on smaller smartphone screens or even tablets.
In general, you don’t have to rewrite your website to optimize your content for mobile. Rather, it’s better to edit it down. Here are a few tips to follow to ensure a great mobile website:
- Be sure contact information stands out such as location, phone number, and map.
- Use shorter paragraphs and put enough space in between.
- Leave out photos and videos unless you can compress them. Mobile users aren’t as patient as desktop users.
- Take out double-click functions and use touch ones instead.
- Make sure there is enough space between buttons.
- Remove autocap and autocorrect functions which are quite frustrating to use in a mobile setting.
- Use links sparingly.
- Take this time to revisit your web content before you start working on mobile content. Google’s late 2013 Hummingbird update has a back-to-basics philosophy where relevance to the search query and differentials from other, similar businesses will really help boost your rankings.
Don’t miss this great opportunity to get connected with the many people on mobile devices!