If the answer to that question is no, perhaps you had better think again!
People are spending more time on their mobiles than ever before, and the growth of this new medium is significantly faster than the adoption of the internet, or the rise of the television. In fact according to this infographic (first seen on smart insights) over 50% of local searches that are performed locally are on a mobile device and by 2014 apparently mobile usage of the internet will have taken over desktop – that’s quite a statistic. But think about it, when you’re sitting in a business meeting now, how many people take notes on a tablet device rather than a pc, this trend is growing.
Mobile Usage
So, how can you take part in this trend, and ensure that your business takes part in any mobile browsing that occurs. The first step is simple, take a look at getting yourself a responsive website. There are in fact two ways to deliver your website to a mobile audience, the first is a responsive design (that resizes itself to the access device) or a separate mobile device that is basically a subset of your original site. Both can work, but if you’re still sitting on the fence on this, then now is the time to make the move,
What are the advantages of a responsive design over a true mobile site
1) Well Google have publicly stated that if your site is responsive, it will improve your chances in the search engine results page over one that isn’t
2) You won’t stumble into duplicate content issues, or having to remember you have two sites to update when you want to make a change.
3) Links still matter, even on a mobile device, again you won’t have to duplicate efforts to get links to your mobile pages so your SEO efforts won’t be wasted.
4) If you are playing in a local market, this really will reap a lot of benefit, if your site is not mobile friendly and users immediately bounce off it then this will impact you being found as you’ll slip down the local rankings quite quickly.
What are you waiting for?? – Check your own website on your phone and see how it looks. If you can’t navigate around it then get yourself a plan to get a responsive design completed this year, you really will benefit from making the move!