According to some recent (current as of May, 2014) research from Google, Gartner and Adobe, mobile website usage is gaining rapidly and as it grows, you’ll soon be left behind if you can’t serve your mobile clients well.
Try to grasp the implications of some of the following statistics:
- Over 70% of smartphone users that see a TV, press or online ad subsequently perform a related search on their mobile device
- Of people who react to seeing a mobile ad: 42% click on the mobile ad; 35% visit the advertiser’s site; 32% search for more information on their phone; 49% make a purchase and 27% call the business
- 1 in 3 mobile searches are local. After looking up a local business on their smartphone, 61% of users called the business and 59% visited (that’s some high figures, folks!)
- Nearly 80%, of mobile users (four out of five US smartphone owners) use their smartphone during shopping
- Most mobile users prefer to use the mobile browser rather than perform in-app browsing
- 74% of smartphone shoppers have made a purchase following research on phone
- Smartphone sales accounted for 55% of overall mobile phone sales in the third quarter of 2013
- The surge of mobile devices and usage is so great that it’s caused a near-8% decline in transitional PC sales
As far back as 2011, Google’s Jason Spero was saying:
“Roughly one in seven searches, even in the smaller categories, are happening on a mobile phone, but how many of you are putting one seventh of your resources into mobile . . . ? Your customer is trying to engage you . . . it would be like not doing business with your customers on Thursdays.” (Feb 2011).
The bad news is, a huge amount of websites are totally unprepared for mobile traffic. Many that claim to be mobile-friendly are only partially compatible, displaying a mini-version of the full website when accessed in alike browser – which can be very frustrating to end users as they attempt to utilize the site.
This is better than the alternative (a site that’s completely unusable of inaccessible on mobile) but is not going to gain you any conversions or sales, except from your diehard fans.
The good news is: because many websites are unprepared for mobile traffic, making yours work good on mobile phones and tablets is a great way to gain on your competitors (or stay first in the game if you’re already there).
If your site is not mobile compatible website, don’t wait: contact us today. We can make your site sail smooth on mobile browsers.