Mark the summer of 2015 on your calendar as a first–there were more Google searches performed on mobile devices during June, July and August than there were Google searches on desktop computers.
The fact that Google receives over 100 billion search queries every month makes this milestone even more critical to websites using SEO techniques. It also indicates that Google, the leading search engine for desktop searches since the beginning of time, appears to be emerging as a fierce competitor of Apple and Facebook’s mobile web browsers after struggling for years to grab their share of mobile searches.
Consumer Behavior, Google and Amazon
Although Google’s problems with catching and reeling in mobile users seems to be fading, consumers continue to forego Google searches for the convenience of buying products from Amazon.
To counter the popularity of Amazon with consumers, developers suggest business owners create websites that are mobile-friendly, i.e., they incorporate these three components:
- Limited scrolling, easy-to-find (big) buttons and a simple search interface
- A five second or less loading time (one thing is for certain about consumer behavior–they will not wait more than a few seconds for a page to load)
- Important information (contact number, how to buy products, short product descriptions) displayed immediately (in other words, don’t make consumers scroll through multiple pages to find what they want)
Mobile-friendly sites encourage user activity, increase conversion rates and experience repeat visitors ten times more than mobile-hostile sites. Nearly 50 percent of consumers say that if they visit a website on their smartphone and the site fails to load promptly or they can’t easily find what they are looking for, their opinion about that website plummets. Consumers actually think that mobile-hostile sites don’t really care about them as potential customers.
Responsive Website Design
Another way businesses are attracting mobile users is by implementing responsive website design (RWD) features when creating their website. RWD consists of fluid grids, CSS3 media queries and flexible images that instantly adapt to smaller screens. In fact, the trend towards RWD is becoming so widespread that Google’s search algorithms are now favoring websites with RWD features when someone performs a search on a mobile device.
If your website is hostile to mobile devices, it may be a good time to change your site’s attitude.
by Bruce Worrall, Oct-22-2015