A mobile website. It’s all true. No longer a bunch of hype. If you don’t have one already, you need one now.
Why? Google says so and will penalize you if you don’t!
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to tell whether or not a site was mobile friendly on your smartphone before you even clicked on the link to go to the site?
Now there is!
Google Search has decided to let users know whether or not a website is mobile friendly by including a notification to that effect right in mobile search results. Check out Search on your smartphone.
The Stats You Should Know
80% of local searches for products or services are now done on mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). 46% of all searches are now done on mobile devices.
Your Competitive Edge with A Mobile Website
If you’re a business owner with a website not optimized for display on mobile devices, this is a huge incentive to become mobile friendly. No brainer.
Say you have a great looking site that has always been popular with visitors and your nearest competitor also has a great website. The mobile friendly designation from Google Search may be that crucial factor.
What does it take to make a site worthy of the Google mobile friendly designation?
Google provides resources on what is required in a mobile friendly site. Click here:
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/
What the “Mobile-friendly” label could Mean for you
The Good – If your site earns Google’s new “Mobile-friendly” designation, you might be rewarded with a ranking boost.
The Bad – Last year Google introduced a penalty for sites providing a bad mobile search experience. Sites generating errors and other problems for mobile visitors received less visibility in Google’s smartphone results.
The Ugly – Plus Google has now added Mobile Usability reports to its Webmaster Tools. They will provide a detailed report for each error found on a company’s website.
So Google now considers mobile usability relevant for optimal search results.
So your mobile search ranking may be at stake 🙁
What To Do About It?
That depends on the amount of mobile traffic that you may be losing.
While it’s difficult to know how many people simply “never visit” because of this new notification in Google search results, you can check your Google Analytics for the amount of mobile traffic that is coming in. This can at least give you an idea of the number of people that are stopping by and having a “less than optimal visit” if you’re not providing a mobile-friendly experience.
Checking this statistic is simple, if you know where to find it. Just get logged in to your Google Analytics account and go to Audience > Mobile > Overview and that will give you the stats .
If you’re interested in a mobile-friendly website, contact Marcia Coffey @ 561-906-3436. We can work together to come up with a fantastic website viewable on all the devices.
Google Search Marketing
The Secret to Google Search
Become an expert. Satisfy your target audience.
That simple.
Or do we make it complicated?
There are many distractions (like Google’s new Hummingbird algorithm) and the uphill battle to reside on the first page of Google … a lifelong obsession.
I should know. It is THE FIRST how-to question clients pose.
As a small business owner with limited time and budget, where do you start?
Start with A Plan:
1) Define your audience. Who are they? Why do they need your services? What’s their problem they are trying to solve? And why? When they call you on the phone, what are their primary questions and concerns? Spend some time on this. Get to know your ideal customer inside and out. It’s critical for the steps that follow.
2) Build your niched keyword phrases list, based on the answers to the above audience interests and location for a local business.
Say you’re a local General Dentist with cosmetic flare and an older clientele. Your all-important Title needs to start with benefit keywords, probably end with location keywords – example: “Implant Dentistry, Veneers, 24/7 Emergency Care, Aesthetic Dentistry of Jupiter
3) Create a professional WordPress website/blog that serves as the content engine for all of your social platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter etc.
4) Establish your expertise and brand by creating top-notch blog articles and other content. Such as …
- Testimonials from your bigger, more reputable customers who have brand recognition.
- How-to articles based on listening to your customers. What do they ask about in their support requests? If there’s a common question that you can answer with a how-to, then that’s what you’ll write about.
- Guest blog posts from other local business owners in a complementary industry. Make the pitch about them and how it will benefit their business.
5) Isolate the social platforms best suited to your business. They are free, time-eating monsters so you must concentrate on the important ones for YOU.
- Facebook is conversational and ideal if you want to interact directly with customers.
- Pinterest is a visual platform only and a great traffic generator.
- Twitter in its own twitterverse has endless possibilities – the perfect mobile tool, great for researching your industry and competition; today’s PR release uniquely suited to last minute, 140-character shoutouts/tweets.
- LinkedIn, your online resume, is a necessity for all serious business people.
- Google+ spans all businesses and is the automatic method to penetrate the enormous world of Google Search across all its platforms.
WHOA, this is a lot of work. How am I going to do this?
Answer: Think Quality and Consistency.
You will focus on creating high quality content only that will build your authority and reputation with your online community. You will do this within your own time frame (say as few as two blog posts per month) on a CONSISTENT basis.
Tenacity is not the same as persistence. Persistence is doing something again and again until it works. It sounds like ‘pestering’ for a reason. Tenacity is using new data to make new decisions to find new pathways to find new ways to achieve a goal when the old ways didn’t work. Telemarketers are persistent, Nike is tenacious.” – Seth Godin
– By Marcia Coffey
Find Marcia on Google+
Call Marcia, Genesis WordPress Web Designer, at 561.906.3436.
Follow @jmgroupdesign