...

How the Google Mobile Friendly Update Will Cause Your Business To Lose Leads

Home » How the Google Mobile Friendly Update Will Cause Your Business To Lose Leads

“Dear CEO: I’m writing to let you know that 60% of potential new leads never make it to our website”.

It’s probably going to be a very bad day for you if you have to write that email to your boss. I’m here to tell you why it could happen, and how to save yourself from ever having to write that email.

Today’s buyers are in charge 24/7, using their mobile devices to search for products or services at tradeshows, while travelling, during meetings — essentially anywhere they need to do business. So it’s no wonder that approximately 60% of search traffic today comes from mobile devices. But try visiting the website of some businesses, including more than 40% of Fortune 500 companies, and you may end up on a website that was built for a large desktop screen and a keyboard. You have to pinch and zoom and tap multiple times before you can actually find what you’re looking for….so you leave the site, frustrated, without making a connection or sale.

Google Makes Mobile Friendly Websites Rank Higher

Google is pretty smart and they know that a site with a poor mobile user experience causes frustration, so in April 2015 they rolled out what has been dubbed #mobilegeddon — a Mobile Friendly Update that ranks websites with mobile-friendly pages ahead of others when a potential customer uses a mobile device to search.

Here’s what this means: if your site’s pages aren’t mobile-friendly, your site may not show up in mobile search.

Do you want to lose more than a third of your possible leads, and ultimately sales, because a  potential customer doesn’t even see your business show up in search? Probably not, and you don’t want to have that conversation with your boss.

Take Action: Test Your Website’s Mobile Friendliness

Here’s what you need to do right now: grab your smartphone and pull up your website to see how it looks on your phone. Compare to the image below.

The Difference a Mobile Site Makes

Now run a test to confirm your site’s mobile friendly capability using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test or the Mobile Usability report in Webmaster Tools. If you’re seeing a bunch of red X’s after running the test, start typing that email to your boss — or consider joining the sixty-five percent of business that are taking charge and implementing mobile strategies so they can continue to compete.

Covert tip: Run the URLs of your competitor sites through the test too. If they are mobile-friendly and your business is not, you have an even bigger problem. If they aren’t, take this as an opportunity to dominate them by building your mobile friendly site first!

Mobile Friendly Tags Attract More Customers

There is something else to consider when thinking about the importance of having a mobile responsive site. It lies in the two words before your site page meta description – Mobile-friendly. This feature was rolled out by Google later in 2014 as the precursor to #mobilegeddon.

When a potential customer searches on Google using their mobile device and pulls up a list of results, it is made clear which pages are mobile-friendly before they click. The likelihood of a buyer visiting the mobile-friendly page rather than the page that is not, is very high. It guarantees a better experience, easier navigation, properly sized images and text that doesn’t require pinching and zooming. So you definitely want that tag to appear before your site page meta description.

Why you should build a mobile friendly site

Start Building Your Mobile Friendly Website

Now you can go to your boss with knowledge and a solution that will help your business generate leads from the device that they most often use to find your company — mobile. Stay tuned to our blog next week when we release our Ultimate Guide to a High Performing Website. It will outline everything you need to know to get working on a new website with mobile friendly design. If you want to stop losing leads from mobile right away, reach out to us  so we can set you in the right direction.

 

Download the Website Development eBook

Related Posts

Let’s go

We can’t wait to hear from you about your most pressing digital hurdle, and start brainstorming how we can help! Fill out the form or book a strategy session with us to jump-start your digital marketing.

Seraphinite AcceleratorOptimized by Seraphinite Accelerator
Turns on site high speed to be attractive for people and search engines.