Why Mobile Is No More an Option (and How to Get Most from It)

The future is inevitably mobile.

US smartphone ownership topped 60% recently. That’s up from 46% in Feb 2012.

Mobile search queries are likely to climb well over desktop queries by 2015, forecasts predict.

More than 100 billion apps have been downloaded from App Store and Google Play as of today.

According to eMarketer, retail mcommerce sales will top $41 billion this year and will surpass the whopping $100 billion by 2017.

Put simply, there’s a spike in mobile ownership, search, app downloads and ecommerce spending every passing day.

Thinking it’s hard to ignore mobile nowadays? We say it’s rather a real must to invest in mobile right now, today (if you haven’t yet).

How, you ask? Let us explain.

First things first, mark your presence on mobile

Your customers expect you to give them a mobile-friendly experience. Which means, whether or not you zero in on a mobile app, you should optimize your site for mobile.

There’s two ways to go about it: a) responsive web design and b) separate mobile website.

We recommend responsive design if your website is text heavy. If, however, your website is interaction heavy like Amazon or media heavy like Youtube, it’s better to go for a separate mobile website.

If you’re looking for SEO tips for mobile sites, check out our go-to guide to improving ecommerce SEO and user experience.

Focus on page speed

Have you ever felt that your site doesn’t get the attention it deserves? If you have, your page speed may be the culprit.

See, page speed becomes even more important when it comes to mobile. Yes, because of those network bottlenecks and slow cellular data connections.

Chances are most users will abandon your site if it doesn’t open in less than 5 seconds.

If you don’t know how to improve your page speed, follow the steps in this page speed guide.

Promote keeping mobile users in mind

Mobile has brought all that’s digital marketing closer to creating ever more meaningful experiences for users, whether it’s social, content, search or email.

Tricking users has become more ineffective than ever, for good.

Just as it’s necessary to look into mobile search data and user behavior in SEO, you can’t do much today without thinking about your mobile email/blog/social subscribers.

So, what do you think about leveraging mobile? How do you do it?