How much attention do you give to mobile search?

[Donfelix]

According to Google -

''Sixty-four percent of smartphone shoppers turn to mobile search for ideas about what to buy before heading into stores''

The question, how much attention are you paying to mobile search?
What percentage of your website traffic or sales come from mobile?

 

[wayzgoose]

55% mobile
25% desktop
15% tablet
5% unknown
Yes, we take notice of mobile searches !

 

[fisicx]

A well built and optimised website will rank as well on mobile search as it does on desktop.

Used to be a bit of an issue but with modern responsive sites it has ceased to be a problem.

 

[UrbanRetail]

Mobile - 59.40%
Desktop - 37.75%
Tablet - 2.85%

In terms of sales, mobile out-numbers desktop by about 5-1. We don't focus on desktop or mobile as such, we just try to make sure everything looks good regardless of what it is viewed on and this is where being responsive is a big help.

 

[Peter Bowen]

This is something we track consistently. I've published our stats on click throughs, conversions and cost per lead on mobile vs desktop for various industries here:

https://pete-bowen.com/performance-of-adwords-on-desktop-and-mobile-in-2017

 

[MartinaAlessi]

Absolutely the mobile as a first one, everyone in these days prefer to use the phone than, the computer is much easier and faster so I would say the 60 %.
Then Desktop with a 25 %, and tablet with a 15 %.

 

[Its4john]

50% mobile

 

[antropy]

The question, how much attention are you paying to mobile search?
What percentage of your website traffic or sales come from mobile?

Why do you ask?

 

[EdSim]

80% mobile, that's my estimation. When I want to buy something I search for it immediately on mobile. It's just faster.

 

[Christopher Day]

I've worked across many brands in the last few years, and have seen a strong trend in mobile growth. Depending on the industry, but +50% is now very common

 

[ddmcmullan]

I ignored making my websites mobile for years, big mistake.

The main reason to optimise for mobile is that Google penalises your site for it not being mobile responsive.

Personally I don't like purely mobile responsive sites and just prefer the desktop versions where I can zoom in and zoom out. The problem is search engines have made the decision for us...

 

[Clinton]

Mobile is over rated and modifying sites to cater for mobile is highly oversold.

There are some sites that get a high percentage of mobile traffic. There are other businesses, like mine, that get traffic predominantly from office computers.

My advice to business owners - don't fall for all the hype around mobile. First check to see what percentage of your traffic is from mobile. Then read what @fisicx says above.

Also, when you do see stats bandied about, read them carefully. For example:

According to Google -

''Sixty-four percent of smartphone shoppers turn to mobile search for ideas about what to buy before heading into stores''

Note that the 64% is not 64% of the population but 64% of those who have smart phones and are shopping on those smart phones.

Anyway, you can't trust anything Google says - an Adwords rep told a mate of mine that any money spent on SEO is completely wasted as all SEO is pointless and ineffective.

 

[fisicx]

Personally I don't like purely mobile responsive sites and just prefer the desktop versions where I can zoom in and zoom out.

Except you are in the minority. A mobile site that is properly responsive can deliver the same experience as a desktop site. The problem is many developers are lazy and don't bother to do the job properly.

 

[ddmcmullan]

Clinton,

How do you know you are not missing out on lots of mobile traffic? I thought the same for years, then I went mobile responsive and BOTH mobile and desktop traffic rankings jumped up. This has happened on two websites now so it’s not a coincidence. My
Mobile traffic doubled in a year.

Fisicx, I think you may have missed my point. Even the best mobile responsive sites, I prefer the desktop style versions on my mobile.

 

[fisicx]

Fisicx, I think you may have missed my point. Even the best mobile responsive sites, I prefer the desktop style versions on my mobile.

But like I said, you are in a minority. I've split tested a number of sites and those with a responsive layout always performed better on non-desktop devices.

 

[ddmcmullan]

But like I said, you are in a minority. I've split tested a number of sites and those with a responsive layout always performed better on non-desktop devices.

Interesting, which is why it’s important to base decisions on logic rather than personal preference.

 

[Clinton]

Clinton,

How do you know you are not missing out on lots of mobile traffic?

Because I test these things!

I own numerous sites in vastly different sectors catering for very different kinds of traffic. And I'm more SEO expert than many of the people selling SEO services on these forums.

Like I said, modifying for mobile is highly overrated.

 

[ddmcmullan]

Like I said, modifying for mobile is highly overrated.

Although I appreciate that in your specific instances modifying for mobile maybe overrated, since MOST other websites have mobile traffic 60%+ IMO for most it would be foolish to ignore.

As I said I ignored it for a long time myself and now I'm reaping the rewards for optimizing with mobile on multiple websites and businesses.

 

[Clinton]

Although I appreciate that in your specific instances modifying for mobile maybe overrated, since MOST other websites have mobile traffic 60%+ IMO for most it would be foolish to ignore

There are two different issues here - catering for your visitors ... and catering for Google.

With respect the first, don't let any Catt Mutts tell you what to do! Know your market, know your visitors, test, improve. End of.

With respect the second, don't do it. But if you do, don't let any Catt Mutts tell you what to do. Know your market, know your target, test, improve. End of.

As an aside, if a large chunk of your traffic is coming from Google then you're doing something drastically wrong! Yes, wrong. Google, despite its size, accounts for less than 5% of how people reach destinations on the internet. The others are social media, by following links on other sites, by clicking links in emails, by following bookmarks (which is probably how you arrived at UKBF today) etc. etc.

If you spend too much time and money chasing "free" Google traffic you're simply building a vulnerability. Sure, free organic traffic is the easiest to get. But it's also the worst kind in many ways.

TL;DR: Don't worry too much about mobile SERPs, go do something useful instead

 

[Arjen]

With Google's upcoming mobile first indexing you just have to pay enough attention to mobile. There is just no other way around.

The good news is that having a responsive website pretty much solves this problem on a basic level.

 

[NickGrogan]

More SEO smoke and mirrors.

To quote Google...

“We don’t have a timeline for the launch yet,” Illyes said. “We have some ideas for when this will launch, but it’s probably many quarters away. Our engineers’ timeline was initially end of 2017. Right now, we think more 2018. ”

He also emphasized that Google wants to roll out the mobile-first index in a way that doesn’t hurt non-mobile-friendly sites, and that could make a complete launch take even longer.

“We’re thinking about how we can make sure we only include in the mobile-first index sites that won’t be hurt by the mobile-first index. The longer time frame can be several years — maybe five years — before we reach an index that is only mobile-first,” he said.



So its 5 years away or more, during which time anything can and will change, so worrying about it now is completely pointless.

 

[14Steve14]

Desktop - 61.38%
Tablet - 21.89%
Mobile - 16.73%

Thats mine, but I know I have lots of older generation male customers who are not as computer literate as some of the younger generation just because of the nature of the hobby based website that I run. So whilst I am aware of the figures because of my known customer base, its not that important to me.

Before I made the site responsive a few years ago, the mobile figures were in the very low single figures.

 

[Fleet Compare]

Don't be surprised if your search rankings drop if you continue to neglect mobile, even if most of your traffic isn't coming from mobile. Google are absolutely moving to mobile first indexing making responsive web design not a luxury but a necessity.

 

[NickGrogan]

Do be surprised that many people seem to think:

1) That Google has only one algorithm.
2) That Google doesn't know what kind of traffic Google is sending to a website.
3) That Google tells it's competitors exactly what it is going to do, months and years ahead.

And perhaps most surprisingly that people don't know how their potential customers use the internet.

 

[JamieM]

My site is heading towards 90% mobile traffic.

 

[NickGrogan]

My site is heading towards 90% mobile traffic.

Which is great if most of your potential customers are using mobiles, and terrible if most of them are using desktops / tablets and not reaching your site.

 

[fisicx]

A good responsive site will deliver the same experience for everybody. Most don't because the developer is lazy and just uses a bootstrap theme.

The mobile first thing is all about the user experience. It's not about building a site that works great on a phone and is mediocre or useless on everything else. Note also that a tablet is a mobile device.