It’s Official: Google Announced that Mobile Devices Drive More Searches Than Desktop Computers

01 Jan 2015

Mike Patel

At a recent AdWords event, Google’s VP of Product Management for Adwords announced that mobile searches now surpass desktop searches in 10 countries, including the U.S.

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, especially with Google’s actions lately. Last November they added a “mobile-friendly” label into their search results and in April, they updated their search algorithm to favor mobile-friendly sites.

We’ve written extensively on this topic this year because going mobile-friendly is by-far, the best thing you could possibly do for your online store right now. So today, we’re publishing this summary of what you need to know if your site is not mobile friendly or if you’re not sure if it meets Google’s Mobile-Friendly standards.

First, what are the facts about mobile shopping?

It can be hard to make changes to your online store because as a business owner, it’s tough not to worry about consequences. But this is the kind of change that can only help your business. And with all the recent announcements and changes from Google, it’s clear that’s the case. Here are some facts to consider:

70% of Walmart’s traffic came from mobile devices during the last holiday shopping season
More than 60% of Target’s traffic came from mobile devices during the last holiday season
Best Buy attributed Black Friday site outages to a spike in mobile traffic
81% of US mobile owners use their devices to research retail items before going to a store
19% of people use their mobile devices while inside a retail location
84% of consumers use their mobile phones or tablets while watching TV – and 44% of them are shopping.
35% of shoppers make purchases on their mobile devices

The fact is that smartphones and tablets have saturated the market. Almost everyone has them and they’ve been around long enough that most consumers trust them for shopping. Shopping from mobile devices has moved past being a trend and is now an established practice by the majority of online shoppers. It simply makes sense to go mobile-friendly to cater to this increasing customer-base.

What ways will having a mobile-friendly site help you, exactly?

Traffic. Google clearly favors mobile-friendly sites. This isn’t a guess. Google says so and it’s important to cater your site to Google’s models because Google is still, by far, the dominant search engine. 80% of online searches go through Google. Bing and Yahoo shouldn’t be ignored but Google is still King. Having a mobile friendly site helps you rank higher with Google and it also gives your site the “mobile-friendly” label so anyone on a mobile device knows your site will work for them, before they even click on it.
Sales. With more traffic you should expect more sales – especially as more and more shoppers turn to their mobile devices to shop. As the numbers above tell us, more people are shopping on mobile devices than ever before. It only makes sense to tap into this and make sure your site works perfectly no matter how or where it’s accessed.
User Experience. Competition is high online. It’s extremely easy for a customer to land on your site and click away to another one. As more shoppers are browsing from mobile devices, if your site doesn’t work right on a visitor’s screen, they’ll click away in a heartbeat. Having a well-designed site keeps users happy and keeps them on your site longer, increasing the odds that they’ll buy from you.

Is your site mobile-friendly according to Google?

This is very important. For a site to get all the advantages of being mobile-friendly, it needs to meet Google’s standards. All sites are different. There are some that might not technically be mobile-friendly but they still might show up relatively well on a mobile device. This really cannot be trusted though. As more and more sites go mobile-friendly, consumers can tell the difference – and so can Google.

How to check if your site meets Google’s Mobile-Friendly Standards:

It’s very simple to tell if your site meet’s Google’s mobile-friendly standards. All you need to do is copy and paste your websites address into a field with Google’s Mobile Friendly test, here: Check Your Website with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Their test will tell you if your site meets their standards or not.

Ready to go mobile-friendly?

When it comes to site updates, converting to a mobile-friendly design is the best thing you this year if you haven’t already. ioVista specializes in converting websites into responsive, mobile-friendly sites that will work no matter how they’re accessed. You see, it’s more than making images appear on a smaller screen, it also involves making sure buttons work when they’re tapped on a touch screen or clicked with a mouse. It’s also extremely important that the checkout process works seamlessly on a mobile device so users have no trouble completing a transaction from their phones or tablets.

For some samples of our recent work, you can go here.

If you’d like a free consultation to talk about converting your site, give us a call or send us an email today.