Is Mobile Important?
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Here is the question people ask when I mention mobile is important; “Really - now I need a mobile website too - doesn’t this just automatically happen?”
So, first, is mobile Important?
You already know the answer to this - “of course it is, you say. It’s just one more place I need to be; just like Facebook, and LinkedIn, and Yelp, blah.blah,blah… “
And your eyes gloss over as you proceed to tell me just looking at the list of everywhere you need to be and to be active and posting n to get visibility in today’s world makes you tired and exhausted. And of course, the next thing that happens is that because it is all so overwhelming, it is just easier not to think about it now. “I’ll do it next week when I have more time and energy.” And then funny thing, next week, never comes.
I am not condemning anyone for thinking this way.. As a matter of fact, how could I even write about it so well unless I have been there in this very thought process scenario myself?
OK.. Back to the question at hand. Is mobile important.
You are darned tootin” it’s important. In fact, over 60% of all searches done today in the entire U.S are done on a mobile device. Wow! So even if you have a business where you imagine people looking for you on their computers, you cannot ignore mobile because people are looking for you there as well.
This means you need a mobile website.
“Wait - what do you mean, I need a mobile website? Doesn’t this automatically happen?”, you ask. “After all, I went to a lot of trouble to be sure my website is “responsive”. Doesn’t that handle it?
Nope!
Well, the answer is not quite as simple as nope. Having a responsive website is a good first step. It means that your website will figure out how big the screen is that someone is using to search for you, and size accordingly. This is good because before responsive sites, half your home page might be lopped off.
But it’s not enough! Why? For 2 reasons:
1. People on a 4 ½ inch cell phone screen do not want to see your website in writing the size of which is normally only found at the bottom of a prescription bottle label. Sure, they can enlarge it - but then they have to constantly scroll from right to left just to read a sentence. Guaranteed in this instance - frustration is fast and they are back to search results and the next site in the list - probably your competitor’s.
2. As if this isn’t bad enough in itself, Google has now changed their algorithm to favor mobile sites that are optimized for mobile. That means it favors mobile sites that are easily read, fully legible, and have tons of content.
This means, you now need to have a special mobile website design that gives the mobile user a wonderful viewing experience where they can find what they are looking for quickly and easily. A mobile optimized website! Because no one wants to be dinged by google and sent to the back of line or in google search terms, down to page 35.
So, yes, a mobile optimized site is very important How do you get one? There are several mobile website providers that provide the capability for generating an optimized mobile site. My favorite at the moment is dudamobile.
Why do I like it? Because it pulls the content from my regular website, for the pages I want on my mobile site, automatically. It does the best it can at automatically optimizing them for mobile viewing and arranging them. Then you can just go in and drag and drop things on the page to move them around if you prefer things in a different order… pretty easy!
Then of course, the last step is to let Google know you have a mobile optimized site - but this topic is for another day. If you’d like more information now, just email me at info@ampurbiz.com, and I will be happy to explain and answer any other questions you might have.
This article is the 16th in a series of articles on common questions people ask me about social media, websites, and online visibility. To see summaries of all of them, and to reach those you are interested in, click here
Tags: mobile website, search results, Google search, online visibility, is mobile important