I surely hope that you have taken measures to be mobile-user friendly, whether that’s through offering a mobile app of your own, a mobile-friendly website or other steps to move your business into the mobile world. If not, you may be in for a bit surprise this holiday season. As I talked about way back in January, mobile friendly sites are only going to become more important in the near future. According to mobile growth patterns that have been trending over recent years, Google has come out with their prediction for the 2011 holiday season…
“44 percent of the total searches for last minute gifts and store locator terms will be from mobile devices this holiday season based on historical growth rates”
That means almost HALF of the TOTAL searches will made from people searching on their smartphones. So first of all, you need to really gear up if you haven’t developed a mobile-friendly site.
Secondly, this is very important if you use paid search (PPC) ads. On smartphones, only the very top ad positions will normally be visible. The same goes for your organic search position. If you aren’t at the very top, it is very unlikely they’re going to be scrolling deeply to find you. If you’re a retail or service business that thrives during the holiday season and you don’t plan for this, it could mean some dramatic losses. Whether you are selling RIFT when it seems sold out everywhere else or you're selling stocking stuffers... this isn't the time of year to miss out on more sales.
Think about it. It’s the last minute and they haven’t found an important gift (or simply got around to going and buying it). They’re out in town and using a store locator and comparing prices… you do NOT want these people to NOT find you! They’re very much likely to show up and buy from you if they can find you, as they’re running out of time and actively searching for you right at that moment.
Now let’s look at another fact that should be a bit scary if you aren’t taking measures to be found on a mobile and have a mobile-friendly business site…
AdMob did a survey in 2011 and found that 65 percent of users said they have used their smartphone to find a business that they then visited and bought from.
Great example… The Crayola (Crown Center) store in Kansas City. The holiday season should be a huge time of year for them. If you look at their site you’ll see a standard site. But if you go to their site on your smartphone you’ll see something totally different.
So the bottom line is whether you’re selling the best skin care products for women that could be excellent stocking stuffers, but you haven’t set up a mobile-friendly site and ensured you’re “findable” on a phone, you’re probably going to lose a lot of sales.
Find out more at this SearchEngineLand story and start making changes now if you still aren’t a mobile-friendly business.
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