At the dawn of this New Year, Google made an announcement that search queries on mobile phones surpassed those on desktop globally. For those constantly keeping an eye on Google’s announcements, it did not come as a big surprise. This was long been under speculation and deemed inevitable.
Turning back the pages of time to 21st April 2015, Google proved that mobile users were its first preference by launching the Mobilegeddon update. It penalized the sites that were not mobile-responsive by giving them a lower ranking. A year and a half later, Google, yet again, surprised everyone with its mobile-first indexing in November 2016, which seems to be a pivotal move to substantiate the fact that mobiles have actually taken over desktop sites. So, with search engine giant’s focus on rating websites on their readiness to cater mobile users and nearly 60% of Google searches made through mobile phones, it is indispensable for any business to have a fully mobile-friendly website. Now, let’s have a look at few main reasons why having a more mobile-friendly website is a must in 2017.
Because Google Says So
NO ARGUMENT: MOBILE FRIENDLY SITES ARE A MUST
Google, with over 77% of global search engine share, ranks mobile-responsive sites higher than non-mobile-friendly sites. Gary Illyes, the trend analyst at Google, accepted “mobile is the big drive for 2017” as the best SEO practice for 2017. Google’s rolling out of Mobilegeddon and mobile-first indexing in late 2016 was a clear indication of it giving higher preference to mobile sites. Although mobile-responsiveness has been a crucial factor in deciding SERP ranking, 2017 would, undoubtedly, be the year when having a more mobile-friendly site would become the key factor for improved ranking.
Because Over 70% Of You Are Reading This On Mobile Phone
18 of the Best Examples of Mobile Website Design
The number of mobile phone devices has increased so much so that it has even surpassed the world population; in fact, it crossed the 8 billion mark at the closing of 2016. Currently, more than 60-70% of the website traffic comes from mobile devices. Smartphone users cannot be considered an exception in 2017 as over 1.2 billion or 80% of internet users user their smartphones for internet access. In order to attract this huge web traffic, it is indispensable that you make your site more mobile-friendly in 2017.
Because User Wants Seamless Switching
SEO in 2017: Mobile optimization as a competitive advantage
Today’s web traffic, which comprises majorly of mobile users, wants seamless switching between different channels. The mobile users behave very differently and are not restricted to a single screen. Even if they are using the desktop to handle a large amount of their work, they would shift to mobile phones at some point in their journey to complete their task. What the present generation wants is to get a seamless switching between various platforms. A more mobile-friendly device would ascertain seamless cross-device usage. No more pinch to zoom, hidden CTAs, slow mobile-page loading, and unreachable buttons; offer seamless switching as 83% mobile users desire the same to become brand consistent.
Because Numbers Never Lie:
Are you ready? 2017 is going to be the year of mobile (with instructions for you)
61% Users Don’t Return To A Mobile Site If They Struggled Accessing It
In order to keep the mobile traffic coming back to your site, taking a more mobile-friendly approach is a must. If the 2017 user finds it difficult to load your site in one go, there are high chances that they would not come back to your site, perhaps, even skip to your competitor’s mobile-friendly site.
180% Growth In Mobile Email Opens
Over 75% millennials (180% growth in the past five years) are more prone to opening emails on their mobile phones rather on desktop or tablets. In order to gain profits from this growing traffic by getting mobile email marketing, firstly, you should perfectly position your website to make it quick-to-load from the user’s inbox to gain an advantage.
61% Users Trust Brand With Good Mobile Experience
Over 61% of the users form a good opinion of a brand if they get a good mobile experience. A smooth and frictionless mobile experience keeps the user engaged and coming back for more. In fact, it is noted that users who feel good about your website tend to recommend the website to their acquaintances as well.
55% Users Use Mobile Internet For Social Activities
More traffic is viewing social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest from their mobile devices. For those into social media marketing, it is important to have a more mobile-friendly website. The links that you share via social media would turn null and void if your site does not respond to mobile screens.
There Are Already Over 1.7 Billion AMP Pages
Google launched AMP aka accelerated mobile pages in March 2016 with the aim to significantly decrease the website’s weight and make them quick to load on mobile phones. Within a year of launch, 1.7 billion AMP pages have been created. These AMP Pages have a 63% higher Click Through Rate (CTR); so, to increase CTR in 2017, it is indispensable that you create an AMP page too.
48% Millennial Use Mobile For Videos
As 48% millennials are watching videos on their mobile phones, if your website has any type of video content, it should certainly be more mobile-friendly so as to cater the large mobile traffic.
Enough reasons? Well, there are a lot more, but each one indicating towards the inexorableness of having a completely functional mobile responsiveness for your website. And remember, today having a basic mobile-responsive website wouldn’t suffice. Your website needs to be perfectly fine-tuned to cater a wonderful browsing experience to the mobile users and to get aligned with Google’s latest updates.
Perhaps it is the mobile phone companies that need to fix their defective mobile phones and make them web complaint.
True mobile phone users may not come back to a website that their junk mobile phone can not load. Which again comes back as a poor reflection upon the mobile phone supplier.
The web is changing and with window 10 now consuming old windows editions as the web moves to provide better protection and more user friendly mean of communicating between all web users, a person has to consider the age and type of hardware or mobile phone that person has bought to connect with the web.
Companies spend $100,000 of dollars trying to find a safe working medium for pc/notebook/laptop and mobile phone users. But the sad and hard cold truth is mobile phone companies are too blame. Ask yourself how many brand of computers are sold and then ask your self how many brands of mobile phones are flogged into the market place?
The answer is mobile phone companies need to compete with the web user requirement not risk making the web hacker friendly for cheaply produced no responsibility junk mobile phones that have no or little web safe standards as new web changes through windows 10 and hardware for new computers are showing in leading the path to a safer bank account online usage for the general public on a whole.
Now stop putting people’s life’s at risk with junk mobile phones and make them web complaint. or in other words grow up and get over yourself.