If youโre a business owner or manager in charge of your companyโs website, maybe youโve heard the phrase โmobile optimizationโ being thrown around before. If you havenโt, youโre about to hear it now, and we encourage you to listen!
For those who arenโt familiar, mobile optimization means that your website is specifically designed to function well on mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets)–this means loading quickly, being easy to navigate using touch interfaces and having information presented clearly and attractively for smaller screens.ย
But why is mobile optimization such a talking point nowadays? What makes it so important? Simply put, your website needs to be mobile optimized in 2023โwithout doing so, youโre missing out on traffic from mobile users, missing out on conversions from these devices, and killing your search engine page ranking.
Your customers are using mobile devices
When was the last time you looked at your web traffic rates sorted by device? If you havenโt done it in a while (or ever), donโt feel badโyouโre running a small business and surely have a million different things to think about. We encourage you to check it using the dashboard of whatever web platform you use, but if you donโt have the time, hereโs one key piece of data to take away: the majority of web traffic in 2022 came from mobile devices.
In fact, mobile traffic has been consistently trending upwards for the better part of the last decade, rising from around 30% in 2015 to nearly double that in 2022, with over half of all web traffic consistently coming from mobile since about 2017. What that means is thatโwhether you want to admit it or notโa significant portion of your potential customers are likely accessing your website via mobile devices, and thatโs an important piece of data for you to know if you want to win over their business.
Mobile optimization increases conversion rates
โSo what?โ you might be asking, โmy websiteโs fine; they can use their mobile browser if they want!โ Yes, that is trueโmost desktop sites will load in mobile browsers. But letโs ask a question in return: when was the last time you visited your site on a mobile device, and really went through the entire customer process? Have you used your mobile browser to go to your site, find contact info, or make a complete sale?
If you havenโt, take a moment now to do so. If your site isnโt mobile-optimized, we bet youโll notice pretty darn quickly. Sites optimized for desktop browsers are great, on a desktop. With a mouse or trackpad you can navigate easily, click where you need to click and get things done smoothly. But people use mobile devices differently, and a site optimized for desktop is likely at best inefficient and at worst nearly unusable when loaded on your little smartphone screen. Frames may crop weirdly, buttons may be obscured, and the whole process is likely just significantly harder to use.
So itโs no wonder that when a site is optimized for mobile, conversion rates tend to go up. When people arenโt frustrated navigating a mobile-unfriendly website, they can complete their purchases and send you your hard-earned money rather than abandoning the process partway through.ย
Mobile optimization helps your SEO
Lastly, mobile optimization helps your website get found. Ever since 2018, Google has been using mobile-friendliness and mobile site speed as a key metric for ranking websites in their organic search algorithm. Google understands that with so many people accessing search from mobile platforms, prioritizing websites that are built for desktop only will cause frustration and consternation from its users, no matter how great the content on those sites, so if you donโt have a mobile-optimized website, expect a hit to your SEO rankings.
We all know how important it is to get your site onto that crucial first page of search results for Google and other search platforms; people pay big money to do search engine optimization so that their customers can simply find them! By having a website that isnโt mobile optimized, youโre limiting your exposure to new customers, limiting your sales, and limiting your potential growthโthereโs simply no way around it, and no reason not to do it.
Mobile optimization can sound daunting, but with the right professional support, it need not cause you a momentโs worry, and thatโs where Skol Marketingโs Minnesota-based team is here to help. To learn more about how we can help you optimize your website for every platform and every device to keep you in the game, please donโt hesitate to contact the local web experts at Skol Marketing.
