Mobile devices heating up SEM game
In this blog post we're going to talk about the rise of mobile devices and how it has raised some serious concerns for SEM. This is a topic that's on the minds of many industry insiders, as more and more traffic comes in from smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.
This post will highlight some of the different ways that you can use your website to convert higher percentages of mobile users into customers. It'll also provide an overview of how you can use responsive design to convert desktop users into mobile customers as well.
Website Survey
First, we'll do a quick survey of the current state of mobile viewing on different devices. If you have any data (graphs, statistics, etc.) feel free to share it in the comments. The goal of this survey is to gain some insight into how many users are using mobile browsers and the extent of their usage.
I've used Google's Webmaster Tools for this survey. It's free, easy to use and has very clear information about pageviews from mobile browsers. You can find more information about this tool at Google's Help Center .
Screen Resolution
A lot of the data collected will come directly from the Device Resolution report. This section of Google's Webmaster Tools shows that a large percentage of mobile device users are still on phone-sized screen resolutions. In particular, the screen resolution 320x480 is used by more than 75% of mobile users. It's also important to note that most smartphones have at least a 480 resolution (width). These are both huge opportunities for webmasters who want to take advantage of this quick growing trend.
Breakdown: iPhone 5, iPad, Android Phones and Tablets
Another statistic we can use is the one that simply reports how many views came from iPhones and iPads.
Breakdown: iPhones and iPads look similar, but the iPad accounts for 10%. That's a sizable percentage considering that there are not a lot of iPads on the market.
It's also important to note that Android users are divided among many different devices. Although the most common screen resolution was 320x480, there were still plenty of resolutions listed from other Android devices. This statistic should be very encouraging to webmasters who want to work with mobile users, as it shows that mobile traffic is growing and will continue to grow for years.
Browser Usage
The Browser Usage report displays browser usage statistics by default. However, what we're looking for here is how many users of each mobile browser have visited our website. Since most of the statistics are self-explanatory, I have only focused on the numbers that interest me. For example, many people use feature phones as their default browsing device. That's why there's a large number of mobile users who are using the Internet for the first time because this is the first device they've owned that can connect to the web. One chart you want to pay attention to is "Mobile Traffic as a % of Total Traffic." This shows how your website is performing in mobile browser traffic. Depending on your industry, you might want to focus more on one type of browser than others.
Breakdown: Mobile traffic still accounts for a relatively small percentage of total traffic . . . less than 5%. Although these numbers are not much higher than they were a few years ago, we're experiencing a steady growth rate. Smartphones, particularly the Android devices with large screens, have helped to raise these numbers.
The next chart, "Visits from Mobile Browsers," breaks down the traffic across all of the mobile browsers you've set up in Google's Webmaster Tools.
Breakdown: Just like #2 on this list shows that mobile traffic accounts for less than 5% of total traffic, this graph shows that mobile customers account for only a little over 10% of your site's visitors. This should help to dispel the myth that mobile users are only interested in very specific information and don't want to buy.
It's important to note that the Browser Usage report can also display information for your mobile-friendly site (in my case, it's http://www.prweb.com). I've used this chart from comparing the amount of traffic from mobile devices and desktop devices on a single site (Prweb).
Breakdown: We can see that at the time of writing this blog post, both desktop and mobile traffic were more than 10% of total traffic. This isn't always going to be the case, but it can provide you with a good idea of how your website is being accessed by customers.
Responsive Design and Mobile Marketing
A responsive or adaptive website design is one that responds to the size of the device that's using it. A mobile site would be a good example of this. A desktop version works like a paper book, while the mobile version is like an eBook. The desktop version should look and function exactly like the iPhone and iPad versions of your site, but with a few small tweaks for smaller screens. The goal here is to provide optimal reading/viewing experiences for all users — from desktop to phone. You don't need to design your entire site for mobile devices, but rather you want to adjust some content based on whether the user is accessing it on a smartphone or on a tablet.
When it comes to mobile marketing, you should create mobile landing pages. These are pages that are optimized for viewing on smaller screens and are different from your regular website landing page.
Let's say your website has a catchy little "Get in Touch" button that links customers to a contact form. You don't want people just clicking on that button and being taken to the general contact form. Instead, make your contact form appear when a customer taps the "Get in Touch" button on an iPad screen or skims through the keyboard on a smartphone. If it looks like this . . .
However, if you have a tablet instead of an iPad or smartphone . . .