You have to be living under a rock if you don’t know that over 50% of search engine queries come from mobile devices.
That’s good news if your business’ website is already optimized for mobile.
If you haven’t optimized your website for mobile, this means bad news for your brand’s reputation and revenue. Having an optimized mobile site is considered standard practice, and having a website that doesn’t work on mobile tells customers you are behind the times.
Simply put, as more users turn to mobile for internet browsing, they expect high-quality user experience and user interfaces.
Still not convinced? Keep reading to learn the reasons why not having an optimized mobile site is hurting your business.
You’ll Recapture Lost Customers
We’ll be blunt. Your non-mobile friendly web page is off-putting. Think about your last mobile browsing experience.
Did you come across a business’ page that looked like a shrunk down version of its main page? Was it too small to read or did you have to zoom in?
That was a bad experience, right? That’s how your potential customers feel when they land on your website on their phones.
It turns out that that bad experience can drive away a lot of people.
A bad mobile experience with your website can cause up to 40% of users to your competitor’s site.
Those are customers you can easily recapture if you optimize your mobile site.
When you invest the time and money in a well-designed mobile website, you create a whole new user experience for your leads. Having a streamlined mobile site with easy navigation makes finding information easy for leads and improves their user experience.
Dodge Google’s Wrath
No, Google’s algorithm isn’t going to come down and rain hellfire on you for not having a mobile-optimized website. But they won’t do you any favors either.
In fact, Google will ignore your website and prioritize websites that do have a mobile site over yours. That means your competitors’ websites will rank above yours and slowly push your website to the second page of results and beyond.
Perhaps you think Google doesn’t matter because there are other search engines out there.
You’re not wrong, but Google has the lion’s share of the search market. In fact, 64% of online searches are run by Google.
Apart from the fact that the bulk of your organic search leads will come from Google, why do you need to appease Google?
Google Runs the Show
In 2016, Google started testing their mobile-first indexing. This type of indexing means they will rank mobile-responsive websites over non-responsive mobile sites.
Mobile-first indexing won’t be put into full effect until sometime in 2018, but it’s best to be prepared for those changes.
Why is Google prioritizing mobile websites first?
It has to do with Google delivering the best results for its users. If more than half of searches run on Google are from a mobile device, they cannot continue to rank non-optimized sites first.
Save Your SEO Score
A major way Google will “punish” websites is by lowering their SEO score. However, you’re likely already doing damage to your SEO score if you don’t have a mobile-optimized website.
When determining your SEO rank, Google evaluates several criteria about your website. A factor they pay special attention to is bounce rate.
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to your website who leave after only viewing one page. There are many situations in which a user might bounce from a website including:
- It takes too long to load
- It doesn’t provide the information the user is looking for
- It’s not optimized for mobile
Algorithms Aren’t People
Google cannot know the reason behind each bounce. They generally take a bounce to mean the user did not have a good user experience whether it’s in the form of a slow website or wrong information.
In short, a high bounce rate will result in a lower SEO score.
One way you can mitigate the risk of a high bounce rate is to optimize your website for mobile. This will at least ensure people aren’t leaving your website because it’s formatted incorrectly.
While you’re at it, you can do a few other things to improve your SEO score:
- Improve the quality of your website’s copy and content
- Make sure it’s easy to navigate your website
- Make your website load as quickly as possible
Attract More Leads
When you have a mobile-optimized website, you significantly broaden the net for leads you can attract. When you have a mobile site that looks great and has compelling content, it will be easier for people to find you.
In a way, you could say it’s a numbers game. By having a mobile website, you make your business visible to the three-quarters of Americans who have smartphones.
No, not all those people will be in the market for your product, but you can reach them all with a mobile website.
When you create your mobile site, you’ll have the flexibility to adjust headlines, copy, and multimedia. Since your mobile visitors won’t have the power (or screen) of a PC at that moment, you want to ensure they can read everything clearly. If you have any videos that automatically play on your website’s desktop version, disable that feature.
All of these considerations help create a better user experience for visitors and help attract more leads.
Have Better Brand Engagement
If you’ve ever flipped between applications and web browsers on your mobile phone, you’ve likely gotten a taste for how brand engagement should work.
For example, if a company you see on Instagram posts a link in their bio to a new product, you can click on that link, and it seamlessly takes you to a browser window. In that window, you’ll see the company’s new product along with the rest of their mobile-optimized site.
When you have a mobile site that’s easy to navigate and has great content, it’s easier for potential customers to engage with your brand. If you have a well-thought-out mobile site that easily links to social media, your customers will be able to follow your links directly to those respective applications.
The longer you can engage a potential customer, the more likely you are to make a sale.
You Need a Mobile Site Today
By now you see the importance of having a mobile site for your website. Having a mobile-optimized website not only makes it easier for potential customers to find you and engage with you, it also helps preserve your good standing with Google.
Your next step will be to talk to your internal development team about creating a mobile version of your website. If you don’t have a web developer on hand, you can always hire a freelancer or an agency.
Get in touch with OSO Web Studio to get started on developing a mobile-optimized website today.
