Top 10 Reasons for a Mobile Website – Mobile Marketing
Good post by VC Marketing
With more and more people accessing the web from some form of mobile device such as a feature phone, smart phone or tablet, it’s becoming ever more important to ensure you have a mobile websites. You may think your current website is fine for mobile users but is it really? Is it optimised for mobile users? Read more for reasons for a mobile website.
If you’re unconvinced that mobile a version of your website is needed, here are some interesting global mobile statistics courtesy of mobiThinking:
- There are 1.2 billion active mobile-broadband subscriptions in the world. That is, 17% of the global population!
- Mobile devices sales rose in 2011 with strong growth for smartphones.
- Nearly 8.5% of global website hits is from a mobile device.
- Many web users use a mobile only to access the Internet with 25% of US web users only using a mobile.
- Google’s gross annual revenue from mobile advertising is over US$ 2.5 billion!
With these kind of statistics, it’s obviously clear that having mobile version of your website is important as it gives you another channel to reach your market. In no particular order, here are my top 10 reasons for a mobile website:
1. Audience
There are 1.2 billion mobile web users in the world. In other words, 17% of global population access the web from a mobile device. That’s an audience too large for any business or website owner to ignore, right?
2. More mobile-friendly
There is a difference between how your current website looks on a desktop computer and on a mobile device. The obvious thing is that a mobile device screen is smaller.
Is your website mobile friendly?
In most cases, the user experience from accessing a normal website from a desktop computer won’t be the same as on a mobile device. If your website contains a lot of pages or long posts, imagine a mobile user constantly scrolling to view a page. Not mobile-friendly at all.
3. Separate index from search engines
Search engines like Google will separately index mobile content so you can easily dominate certain keywords in the mobile space. If one of your competitors dominates the search engine results for their normal website but does not have a mobile version of the site, you could theoretical take their place in the mobile space.
4. 1-in-7 searches are now mobile
Can your customers find your website from a mobile device? According to Google, 1-in-7 searches are now performed on a mobile device, which shows mobile users are actively performing searches from a mobile device.
5. Mobile shopping to reach US$ 119 billion dollars in 2015
According to ABIresearch, shopping on the mobile web will reach US$ 119 billion in 2015 with 79% of smartphone users doing product research before they make a purchase. So if you’re an online retailer without a mobile site, maybe it’s time to develop and have a mobile strategy in place?
6. Global mobile ad spend to hit $20.6 billion in 2015
Do you think the mobile web is worthless? Gartner predicts global mobile ad spend is to hit $20.6 billion in 2015 with search and local ads delivering the highest revenue for search engines.
7. Mobile web usage to overtake PC web usage by 2015
IDC believes in the US, mobile web usage will overtake PC web usage by 2015. In the long term, it can be argued that having a mobile web strategy is more important than a PC web strategy.
8. Brand
With a mobile presence, you get the chance to take advantage of a new channel and unify with your other marketing channels. That is, customers or users get the chance to discover and get familiar with your brand.
9. Convenience
We all love convenience and accessing news and information on the go is great. So why not make your website accessible anytime and anywhere to users on the go? If you don’t have a mobile version of your website, you’ll be restricting yourself to only desktop and laptop web users.
10. Don’t get left behind
It’s highly likely your competitors already have some form of mobile presence, even if you don’t go mobile soon, chances are your competitors already have so don’t get left behind!
Did I miss any other reasons on why businesses should have a mobile version of their website? Please let me know in the comments.
