Why is it Important to Optimise for Mobile?
23rd Jul, 2020
The incessant growth and penetration of mobile and Internet technologies across the globe have helped online users become smarter customers. With all the information we ever need at our fingertips, we are now all able to perform independent searches online and can make informed purchasing decisions in a matter of a few minutes.
This is how important mobile technology has become when we take modern-day consumerism into consideration. When it comes to running a business, owners must ensure that their digital assets are perfectly optimised for mobile.
Core digital business assets:
- Website
- Social media profiles
- Business listings
- Blogs
- Content
- Any other online space associated with the business.
But, should you make this transformation just because consumers have adopted mobile technologies? While the above is one very good reason why you should be doing it, there are many other important factors that will affect your final decisions. In this post, we are going to discuss why you need to optimise for mobile in 2020. Let's get started!
The Benefits of Optimising Your Website, and other digital assets for Mobile in 2020
1.Improves User Experience
Your business starts and ends with your customer. It is important that you understand where your website visitors are coming from and what devices they are using to access the information you serve on your site. If the majority of the traffic coming to your website is from mobile, then it makes sense to ensure your digital assets are optimised for your biggest audience. If pages take too long to load, and your site is hard to navigate or makes information hard to find, you will lose users and see engagement metrics drop. For the majority of websites in South Africa mobile traffic outperforms desktop traffic. According to Flicker Leap, in 2019 85% of online searches in South Africa, happen on a mobile device.
2.Improves Website Speed
The rate at which we consume information is rising. People are becoming more and more impatient and just can't bear with a website that takes more than a few seconds to load. The more time your website takes to load, the higher its bounce rate. If you want people to engage with your website, make sure it delivers its content timeously.
3.Increases user Engagement
A well-optimised website is able to generate better engagement rates because visitors are staying on the site for longer periods of time. The more time visitors spend on your site, the more engaged they become and the more likely they are to purchase or complete a task. They might like the content, leave a comment, click on the “call to action buttons”, or even connect with you for a meeting. There is so much that can be accomplished if you optimise your site for mobile from the foundation up.
4.Boosts Retention Rate
The retention rate is a key indicator of how well your website is performing. The retention rate is nothing but the average amount of times each user spends on your site. The reason why it is a direct indicator of your site performance is that an average user will only spend time on your site if it works properly. Whether a particular visitor spends time on your website or not will be determined by the seamlessness of your site's user experience.
5.Improves Mobile SEO
Google is constantly pushing towards a mobile-first ecosystem and that is exactly why you should be doing the same. According to Google Developers, mobile-first indexing became the primary indexing method as of 1 July 2019. Mobile SEO is a major thing, given the growing number of mobile users across the globe. Talking about ranking on search engines, Google has been considering a website's ability to respond to mobile inputs. What this means is if your website is not optimised for mobile, Google will not rank your site on its Search Engine Results Pages.
6.Attract More Local Customers
Executing a perfect mobile SEO campaign on your site will allow you to draw the attention of your local customers. These are the customers that are looking for your products and services in your vicinity. They are also the people that perform online searches before heading out and ending up at a physical store. If your website is efficiently optimised for mobile, the chances are high that your potential local customers will find you online. Poor mobile SEO will hurt your ability to draw the attention of your local customers and convert them for your business.
7.Build a Solid Foundation for Future Updates
Lastly, optimising a website for mobile will allow you to stay prepared for upcoming Google updates. As we mentioned earlier, Google has already adopted a mobile-first ecosystem which means that most of its algorithm updates will be around enhancing the mobile experience of its users.
We have shared some of the most important reasons why companies should be optimising their online presence for mobile. We highly recommend auditing your business website, social media platforms, and your other digital assets to ensure that the content and creative are designed in a way that makes it easier for mobile users to access. Have questions? Feel free to get in touch with us, and we will gladly assist.