The future is mobile. We’re guessing you may have heard this before. Yes, for years everyone in the Internet marketing world (us included) have been recommending an early and aggressive play in the mobile marketing space. 53% of searchers purchase as a result of a smartphone search in the U.S, according to Google.
Mobile SEO and Mobile PPC (not to mention mobile display ads) are an incredibly powerful form of messaging for any business that relies on an impulse buy or targeting local customers. Mobile marketing appeals to industries ranging from restaurants to legal firms.
Despite the exploding popularity of mobile search, most companies refuse to take advantage. According to Word Stream, only 5 percent search advertises following mobile best practices. (h/t Search Engine Land.) Wordstream CTO Larry Kim reports that 55 percent of PPC and display campaigns target mobile devices yet aren’t optimizes for the mobile user experience. And that doesn’t even account for the millions of local businesses that have yet to tap into the mobile search market!
Mobile marketing is more than a buzzword, folks! It’s one of the best ways to quickly and cheaply drive new revenue for your business. Not only is the market exploding, but your competitors are simply not optimizing their online presence for the mobile world.
Call us crazy, but we think this mobile thing might be around for a while. So it’s time to get your mobile marketing house in order. Why? Because people are not only using mobile devices to search for your business; they are incredibly motivated to buy when they do search on their phone or tablet.
Mobile Users Take Action
Mobile users take action, plain and simple. And the hardest thing for your business to do is to get users to take an action to convert to a paying customer. Yet mobile search offers you a cost-effective platform that is inherently conversion-friendly.
How mobile users take action:
76% click to map the location or find the operating hours. (This proves that mobile users are looking to buy RIGHT NOW!)
61% click to call the business they find when searching.
54% send an email to the business.
53% download an app during or after their search.
48% go to one of the company’s social media page, such as Facebook or Twitter.
41% play a video clip from their mobile device.
The Terrible Mobile User Experience
Mobile users are looking for immediate engagement when they find your business, yet an overwhelming majority of users are reporting a bad user experience when they do find you.
96 percent of users have visited a site that wasn’t mobile-friendly.
74 percent say they’re more likely to revisit mobile-friendly sites that they find.
55 percent say a frustrating mobile experience hurts opinion of the brand
Mobile Marketing Best Practices
Here’s a quick list of the best ways to optimize your online business for mobile search.
1. Create a mobile-friendly version of your website.
2. Optimize the design of the mobile site for the mobile experience.
3. Implement mobile SEO using mobile keywords in your meta content and source code.
4. Integrate mobile calls to action such as click-to-call and click-to-map.
5. Integrate social media buttons for Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
6. Integrate videos on your mobile site.
7. Integrate click-to-email to make it easy for your visitors to contact you as soon as possible.