If you have had a website created in the last 5 years from a half decent web designer your website is probably already mobile-friendly. In other words it will display correctly on mobile & hand-held devices such as your iPhone, Samsung or Blackberry as well as your iPads & tablets. While obtaining website quotes you may have heard of the term ‘responsive web design’, this means the website design will “respond” to ANY device or display, be it your mobile phone or your 48″ Monitor screen. Because people access the Internet in so many different ways now, this makes for a streamlined experience for all visitors viewing your website.
If for whatever crazy reason your website does not work on a mobile phone, and just to be clear when I say ‘does not work’ I mean if you cannot use the website on a mobile phone without pinching and zooming. If your website needs you to pinch and zoom on a mobile phone your website is not mobile-friendly.
Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. – Google Search
Is there really that much traffic from Mobile?
You might say to yourself, “Most of my customers aren’t looking at my site from mobile phones.” However recent studies have shown that more than half of all digital traffic now comes from mobile devices and through mobile apps. I can also vouch for this as I see clients analytics data and when I look at it in many cases I actually see over 70% of traffic to websites is mobile traffic.
This is always going to give & take depending on your industry, but on average, my clients see anywhere from 45-80% of their traffic coming from mobile.
Google have also stated that basically they only care about Mobile going forward and that having a non mobile friendly website will also negatively impact your overall success in search engines. Based on this I now make websites designed for a mobile phone first and then just ensure it works ok on a desktop PC.
Benefits of a Mobile Friendly Website
- Streamlined experience across devices
- Positive ranking signal
- Improve mobile conversion rate
- Improved user experience
- More flexible and cost-effective than app development
Did you know Mobile Shopping is Taking Over?
Any mobile-friendliness issues your website has becomes even more serious when we step into the online shopping arena. Online shoppers have quickly started to favour using their mobile devices when browsing and buying products online.
Check your website on your phone
Don’t throw away your mobile customers and let your search traffic dwindle. Make sure your websites are ready with a mobile-friendly design. Have a look yourself on your own phone and your partners phone, and again check on your kids phones just to be sure that each page of your website works great on all phones.