Why a Mobile-Friendly Website Is Essential to a Successful SEO Strategy in 2015

Some organizations are still resistant to having a mobile-friendly website, either because they lack the resources or don’t see the value. If your organization falls into this category, and you would like to continue being relevant in 2015 on the most widely used search engine in the world, Google, then now is the time to begin building a mobile-friendly website.

Here are three reasons your organization must have a mobile-friendly website in 2015.

Reason 1: Increased Mobile Visits

Now that Google labels websites that are optimized for mobile as "mobile-friendly" within its mobile search results, failing to have a mobile-friendly website can have a negative impact on your website’s click-through rate (CTR). Think about it this way. If a user performs a search with their mobile device, and four of the top five results have a "mobile-friendly" label, all else being equal, the mobile user will give preference to the four results that Google identifies as being mobile-friendly. The effect of this over time is less click-throughs for the website that is not mobile-friendly, and more click-throughs for the websites that are.

Fortunately, Google provides a tool that allows website owners to test if their website is mobile-friendly. If a website passes this test, it will receive the "mobile-friendly" designation

Reason 2: Higher Mobile Rankings

Google already penalizes websites in mobile search that are not mobile-friendly to ensure that websites which are mobile-friendly rank higher and provide mobile searchers with a better user-experience. However, Google now appears to be taking this a step further by using the "mobile-friendly" designation as a ranking factor to promote sites that are optimized for mobile, in addition to demoting those that are not.

Consider this quote from the Google blog post that announced the new "mobile-friendly" labels:

"We see these labels as a first step in helping mobile users to have a better mobile web experience. We are also experimenting with using the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal."

Reason 3: Increased Revenue From Mobile

If increasing rankings and click-throughs to your website isn’t enough incentive to be mobile-friendly, hopefully lost revenue is. Lacking a mobile-friendly website at a time when so many searchers use mobile devices to find products and services they need is essentially handing customers over to your competition.

The bottom line is that failing to have a mobile-friendly website is most likely already resulting in lost revenue for your organization. Consumers are becoming less and less willing to put up with poor user-experiences on their mobile devices because organizations fail to adapt to changing expectations. Your prospective customers will find the path of least resistance, and that path will lead straight to your competitors in 2015 if they have a mobile-friendly website, and your organization does not.

Conclusion

Make sure your organization has a successful SEO strategy in 2015 with a mobile-friendly website, and benefit from more click-throughs, higher rankings, and most importantly, increased revenue.

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6 Reasons Why Your Website Needs to Be Mobile-Friendly

More and more businesses are creating mobile-friendly websites with every passing day. Why? Because they have to! Today it is requisite that businesses - large, medium and small - have a mobile-friendly website and/or a mobile app. More than half of the total population in the United States owns a smart phone. And 73.4% of them used their smart phone to access the internet in 2013. By 2017, 90% of smart phone owners around the world will access information about your business on the internet via a mobile device (statista.com). So let's take a look at some of the reasons why your business' website needs to be mobile-friendly.

• Access: Mobile-friendly websites allow potential customers to access your company’s information, products and services anytime, anywhere and at their own convenience. Accessibility is the key for your business to succeed.
• Convenience: Mobile-friendly websites are convenient for mobile phone users, and especially so for smart phone users. Do the math: if your website is mobile-friendly, more people will access it which will increase click-through and conversion rates for your business. Nowadays people browse, shop, look for restaurant and hotel reviews and make reservations via their smart phones. Businesses with mobile-friendly websites will steadily progress because they will be seen and not avoided. Smart phone users will not squint to view your website when your competition provides them with one that is mobile-friendly.
• Social Media is King: In July of 2013, 93 million users accessed the social network Facebook via browser on their smart phone. 70% of Facebook users in the United States now access that social channel via their smart phones - not on a desktop computer. Some 62% of respondents say Facebook is the most useful social network for researching small businesses before purchasing (godigitalmarketing.com). If smart phone users end up at your website via a link on your Facebook page, TripAdvisor, Twitter, etc., you better be darn sure your website is mobile-friendly.
• Mobile SEO: Google has taken a strong stance on mobile SEO, announcing there will be demotions if your site is not mobile-friendly or is misconfigured when it comes to being mobile-friendly. Google said the demotion will only impact mobile, smart phone friendly, search results and only impact web pages that are not smart phone friendly or misconfigured when it comes to being smartphone friendly. No explanation needs to be offered here. If you don't rank in mobile search, you're out of business because your competition will be seen and you won't.
• Sales: Mobile friendly business sites see more sales, a thicker bottom line. As of 4th quarter 2013, it was found that 34 percent of internet users worldwide used their mobile devices to research products or services they intended to purchase (statista.com). In 2013, U.S. B2C (Business to Consumer) e-commerce sales amounted to 58.5 billion US dollars and are projected to almost reach 200 billion U.S. dollars in 2018 (statista.com). So you need to ask yourself as a business owner, "Do I want to be a part of the trend?" The answer is a resonating, "YES!"
• Mobile Internet is the New Internet: Mobile devices accounted for 55% of Internet usage in the United States in January, 2014. Apps made up 47% of Internet traffic and 8% of traffic came from mobile browsers, according to data from comScore. Although total Internet usage on mobile devices has previously exceeded that on PCs, this is the first time it's happened for app usage alone. The shift follows a free fall in PC sales, which suffered their worst decline in history in 2013.

So as you can see, there's a skyrocketing trend toward more and more people using their mobile devices to access the internet and your business' website. Once they arrive at your website, they won't want to struggle with a site if its unreadable, unnavigable or complicated. It is imperative that your mobile-friendly business website be simple, intuitive, fast-loading and easy to navigate. The desktop is fading in terms of marketing your business online. As a business owner you need to throw old notions out the window and adapt to the new realities of how people are using the internet to find out about you, what your business has to offer and why they should procure your products and/or services.

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