In online marketing, there are always buzzwords. You know, the type that get over played by everyone who wants to make it sound like they know what they are talking about. Think “promoting synergistic means of moving forward” or talk of becoming a “thought leader.” “Mobile-friendly” is a buzzphrase we have been hearing for a long time, and now we know why.
At The Drug Rehab Agency, we used to shrug off the importance of having a mobile site. Ignoring the demand for mobile responsiveness could have cost us our business, or at the very least, strangled our pipeline. And it could do the same to your business.
Over the last year, we have watched mobile traffic increase for each of our clients, and even our very own websites. Month-over-month, our clients (and their competitors) are seeing more and more people enter their site through a mobile device. Thankfully, we were able to catch the trend, and take action on our clients’ behalf to ensure they were not missing out on those important intake phone calls. But why is this so important?
Two Reasons You Should Care About Mobile:
1. Increased traffic - We all know that ranking within the top 3 search results is the key to large inbound lead numbers. I have covered that before. (If you didn’t see it, click here to have a read on why SEO matters.) However, some great information came out on Search Engine Land that talks about the importance of ranking number one in mobile search. Unlike desktop searching, our mobile clicking behavior is much greater at the top of the page. The data says that you will lose 18.5% of clicks when dropping from the first result to the second. That is huge, when compared to the 7.9% drop between positions 1 and 2 when a user is on a desktop. Now, more than ever, that number one position is EXTREMELY important and will be worth the investment to achieve.
2. General Rankings – Google has not come out point blank and said, “Hey, mobile is a new ranking factor.” No, no, that’s not how Google does things. They like to take a more subtle (read: unhelpful) approach. However, a Google employee said in an interview,
“Because at Google we are aiming to provide a great user experience on any device, we’re making a big push to ensure the search results we deliver reflect this principle. We want users to be able to enjoy the web wherever they are.”
When crawling a website, Google is finally able to see the site from the user perspective. Meaning, that rather than just seeing the backend code, they can see the whole website. And they can view it in all its forms, such as mobile vs. desktop. So, given what they said above, sites that aren't mobile-friendly could plummet in rankings as Google tries to deliver the best results for their mobile searchers.
We have moved all our clients to mobile friendly versions of their websites. Since, we have seen increases in phone calls and more mobile traffic to their sites.
For those who aren't our clients, we suggest you get your site set up for mobile as soon as possible. If it seems daunting and you need help, just give us a call. We are happy to work with you to get your mobile-friendly website set up.
