How Important is Mobile Website Optimization? Statistics and Trends for 2018

Whether it’s mobile website optimization or mobile app development, you need to have a mobile presence. Not only is the bulk of your audience on mobile, but they’re on mobile most of the time because it’s their preferred form of media consumption. What do they do as soon as they wake up in the morning? Check their phone. What do they do when they’re bored? Check their phone. What about when they’re looking for someplace to eat? Check their phone. We can do this all day, but the answer will always be check their phone.

In other words and like we covered in the beginning, you need a mobile presence. Choosing to forgo and staying with desktops will only lead to lost revenue, and that’s something you can’t afford. As a matter of fact, Google knows this and even provides an Impact Calculator tool that examines the potential effect speed has on your conversion rates. Look over it and, when you finish, check out these 20 mobile stats to help guide your strategy.

Mobile Usage Statistics 2017 Marketers Saw

• Adults in the US spent 3 hours and 15 minutes per day on mobile devices, and that number is expected to increase to 3 hours and 23 minutes in 2018.
• When it comes to media usage, users spend on average 69% of their media time on smartphones.
• In fact, global mobile data traffic is expected to increase nearly a sevenfold between 2016 and 2021.
• And when we compare mobile to desktop, there are now more global mobile users than desktop users.
• Moving on to how people are browsing online, Google drives 92.6% of mobile search traffic, followed by Baidu at 3.9%, Bing at 1.6% and Yahoo at 1.2%.
• When it comes to advertising, Google also reigns supreme and drives about 95% of US smartphone paid search clicks.
• Mobile also made up around 87% of Facebook’s overall ad revenue in 2017, up from 84% percent in 2016.
• If that’s not enough to convince you that mobile is the way to go, average smartphone conversion rates are 64% higher when compared to average desktop conversion rates.
• In moments of need, people also turn to their phones and search, with 96% of people using a smartphone to get things done.
• For example, 68% of people used search to help with things they want to address at some point in the future, and those searches largely happen on mobile, with 97% of people searching on a mobile phone to do so.
• When it comes to commerce, 92% of those who searched on their phone made a related purchase.
• And if you also have a physical store, 70% of smartphone owners who bought something in a store first turned to their devices for information relevant to that purchase.
• As a matter of fact, 90% of smartphone owners use their phones while making purchasing decisions in brick and mortar stores.
• This all points to the fact that you need mobile website optimization, and what better route than using Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), which make up 7% of traffic to US publishers?
• Not convinced? Well, AMP pages are actually helping brands like the Washington Post increase returning users from mobile search by 23%.
• This is because 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load.
• If you can’t get your site to load under 3 seconds, aim for 5 seconds, as sites that load in 5 seconds versus 19 have 25% higher ad viewability, 70% longer average sessions and 35% lower bounce rates.
• Delving deeper, as load time goes from 1s to 3s, the probability of a bounce increases by 32%, from 1s to 5s it goes to 90%, from 1s to 6s it becomes 106%, and from 1s to 10s it’s an appalling 123%.
• Not good. On the other end of the spectrum, mobile sites that load in 5 seconds earn up to 2x more mobile ad revenue.
• Finally, 57% of users also say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly-designed mobile site — not something you want.

Tips for Mobile Website Optimization

Many things can be gleaned from the stats above, but one thing stands above the rest: you need to be optimize your site for mobile users. For example, start by getting a mobile-friendly site.

You have a couple of options here, such as a mobile optimized vs responsive site, but the latter will be your best bet. While a mobile optimized site is a good starting point, all it really is is a website that works on mobile devices and can pass Google’s tests. What you want is a responsive site that resizes all content according to the screen it resides in. Not only will this pass Google’s tests, but it will also deliver a much better experience for your users, who are the ones you should be focusing on.

Apart from a mobile-friendly site, make sure to account for other mobile-related things you’re sure to encounter, such as local search if you have a brick and mortar location, and long-tail keywords that are favored by mobile users. For both of these, think of your users’ intent and choose keywords that answer who, what, where, when, why and how. For example, while a desktop user searches for ‘coffee nyc’, a mobile user will search for ‘coffee shops near me’. In this case, the user’s intent is to find a coffee shop near them.

Why Mobile Optimization Is Important: Putting It All Together

You’re well on your way if you’ve done or will do everything we’ve covered today. If you’re unsure about your mobile optimization efforts, feel free to use these 5 tools that will help you optimize your site for mobile search.