Today, when consumers understand the importance of smart phones for local searches, the question is, whether local businesses understand it in the same way? This question is becoming more and more crucial for business, but they still show reluctance to go mobile.
As a matter of fact, more than 93% small businesses are still struggling to get mobile compatibility. You can imagine how many opportunities they lose every second when you consider that 4 out of 5 people use mobile phones for shopping. Google studied that 50% cell phone users visited stores on the same day, after performing local mobile searches.
According to Toronto SEO services, people are aware of the importance of cell phones, but many companies are in illusion that this trend will not affect them. They have a strong belief that Google’s latest mobile-friendly update is just a glimpse of a big change that’s about to knock down such businesses, pretty soon.
Apart from the mobile-friendliness, businesses also need to consider that people don’t rely on just one device. They keep searching for seamless experience and this is why we get to see a large variety of cell phones, smart TV, laptops and other mobile devices. So, your preparations should be more focused on this trend, rather than having just a mobile-friendly tag.
Here are few things to avoid in order to keep pace with mobile trends.
1. Responsive Website is Not The Ultimate Solution
Congratulations, you’ve finally created a responsive website that adjusts according to different mobile screens – your worries are over, isn’t it? Perhaps not, because there are different issues related to responsive sites. Things, such as navigation, minimum scrolling and ease of accessibility are vital for today’s websites. So make sure, your visitors don’t have to scroll so much to find what they want. Then, the content available on the website must have the same responsive feature.
If you want to know visitors’ experience associated with your site, you can use Chrome’s mobile emulator. There are other free tools to measure customer satisfaction, such as feedthebot.com/mobile and ready.mobi.
2. Avoiding What Mobile Users Look For
Customers on the move look for instant information and a good website ensures maximum information in a limited time. While business owners think about mobile-friendliness, they may forget to place most valuable content at the right places. Businesses with more than one websites tend to face this issue a lot. As, creating so many responsive websites may be costly and time consuming for them, businesses tend to use mobile-friendly versions of original, desktop websites. But that’s not the real solution.
You need to make sure all website pages are user-friendly, especially landing pages. Conduct a branded mobile search and test top results on different mobile devices.
3. Ignoring the Importance of Mobile Traffic Tracking
Once you’ve created a mobile-friendly website, you need to track mobile traffic with the help of proper tools. Google Analytics offers mobile overview report in audience section. You can use available tools to breakdown website traffic information with respect to desktop, tablet and mobile. These tools also allow you to monitor bounce rates, revenues and conversion rates.
Dig deeper and understand how people are interacting with responsive websites. Here are some strategies you may want to adopt:
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Use benchmarking reports to see your position among similar sites
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Monitor your conversion rate and pay attention to areas where visitors leave your site.
The point is to measure mobile experience separately, to deliver great local search experience to customers.
The Next Big Thing
Now, look forward towards opportunities – mobile apps.
Apple’s search API for iOS9 will help iPhone users to find apps and web content online. Even better – it will tell you what these apps are meant for and how you can use them for seamless experience. This app autofills search results, so you don’t always have to rely on Google.
US consumers spend over 85% of cell phone time on apps, and this is where some retailers have benefitted a great deal. Target corporation’s mobile app is a huge success, accounting for 68% of the time spent on smartphones by its customers.
Conclusion
With so much changed already, and a lot many things to change shortly, have you made plans for you mobile website to take your audience into future?
