Mobile First Facts

It wasn’t that long ago that Desktop PC searches were the preferred way consumers searched for products and services. Gone are those days and mobile-based searches have surpassed desktop searches. That means if you don’t have a mobile-optimized website, you may be losing out on customers.

54% of all customer searches are done via mobile versus 43% of desktop searches

That doesn’t mean that desktop searches are discounted altogether. The PC is still important but businesses must employ best practices in their approach to website development. The best practice we’re talking about is called Responsive Web Design. That means a website is designed to be optimally viewed on whatever device the end user has in front of them. Responsive Web Design is the alternative to creating a separate mobile website in addition to a desktop version. Ultimately, it’s a time and money-saving best practice. At Small but Mighty Marketing, we believe in a mobile-first approach to website development. And we’ll tell you why.

Not having a mobile-optimized website will affect your search engine rankings. In 2015, Google announced major changes to its search algorithm where sites NOT optimized for mobile would be penalized. Your company may offer a more superior product or service compared to your competitor, but if they have a mobile-friendly website, then their company will show up higher in the organic search results over yours.

Another point to consider, just last year Google announced focused efforts on mobile-first indexing. What this means is that a mobile version of a site would be crawled first by the search engine bots before the desktop version. If you have a responsive design, no need to worry, but if you have separate versions of your site for mobile and desktop, there are steps you can take to ensure your site is crawled properly. Call Small but Mighty Marketing and we can help determine if your site is meeting the new Google standards.