According to the latest research, 94% of the people in the US with smartphones search for local information on their phones. Even more interesting, 77% of all mobile searches take place at home or at work, places where there are usually computers nearby.
Last year, Google started including mobile friendliness as a ranking signal, and you should be glad they did. If the power of Google is causing you to take a fresh look at your site’s mobile friendliness, be grateful. Obviously, mobility is critical to the success of any company, of any size.
Here are a few things you should know when looking at your mobile site, and a few things you should avoid.
Three Things You Should Know
- Make It Easy
The goal of any website is to make it easy for visitors to do what you want them to do, whether it’s to place an order, register, find more info, read your great blog posts, etc. Since more visitors are going to your mobile site, that experience has to be just as easy – if not easier. Work with your web team (Envision Works, for example) to outline the potentials steps in your customer’s journey to make sure everything is clear, and try to streamline the experience as much as possible.
- Measure the Effectiveness
According to MediaPost, mobile shoppers put ease of use foremost when it comes to mobile shopping sites. Just because you tried to make your mobile site easy to use doesn’t mean you actually achieved that goal. Use surveys, focus groups and friends to put your site through the paces and see how user pathways can be improved.
- Be Consistent
We suggest you use a mobile template, theme or design that is consistent for all devices. In other words, use a responsive web design. When you do, the page uses the same code and the same URL whether the user is on a laptop, tablet or smartphone, and the display automatically adjusts to be easy to read on each device. Another benefit of using responsive design is that when it comes to updates, you only have to update one version of the site.
Three Things You Should Avoid
- Don’t Forget Mobile Customers
Sometimes, developers create a specially formatted site for mobile that, in the transaltion, loses some functionality of the full desktop site. Instead, build a mobile-friendly site using responsive design (see above), and give yourself – and your customers – the best of both worlds.
- Don’t Put Your Mobile Site Elsewhere
While Google supports multiple mobile site configurations, creating separate mobile URLs requires a great amount of additional work for you and your team. Not only is it harder to maintain and update your site, it also introduces additional possibilities for technical glitches. Keep it simple, and everyone benefits.
- Don’t Work Alone
When you work in isolation, you miss out on a world of inspiration. We’re not suggesting you steal from anyone, but take the time to look around at other mobile sites in your space for ideas and best practices. If you’re late to the mobile site game, at least you have the benefit of learning from everyone else. Take advantage of it.
If you are undertaking a mobile re-evaluation, don’t panic: you are not alone. First of all, you can always contact Envision Works at 800-295-1220 for help. Besides that, Google has a ton of very helpful, very readable documentation. We recommend their guide for developers called Mobile-Friendly Websites, as well as a more informational doc called The Mobile Playbook. Both are well worth reading.