Back in August, my two-year-old son and I spent our summer vacation at Myrtle Beach, SC. It had been at least eight years since I had seen the ocean and it was my son’s first time, so we had really been looking forward to the trip. The week we chose to be there could not have been more perfect. The weather was gorgeous and the beach was pretty vacant. After a long day of jumping waves, building sand castles, and searching for seashells, it was time for dinner.
For the parents out there, you’ll understand what I mean when I say you can vacation from work, but you can’t vacation from parenthood. The little buggers still have to eat and most of the time they can’t fix food by themselves. A bag of chips will only get you so far. Wanting to stay as far away from cooking and dishes for as long as I could, my two options were to go out or to order in. Seeing as how I also wanted to avoid my toddler’s foot on the table, food on the floor, spoon and table drum set, I decided to order in.
Like most people in this technology driven era, I chose to place an order on my phone. However, the biggest challenge I faced during my dinner quest was the fact that the majority of the restaurants I was navigating, did not have mobile-friendly websites.
Although the “Order Online” call-to-actions were quite clear, their websites’ design made it nearly impossible for me to actually place an order using my phone. Because of this, I had to turn down garlic shrimp scampi and cajun stir fry. Although I’m sure those options were delicious (and what I preferred), they simply weren’t worth the time and effort it would take to order them. While I wanted food that was tasty, I also wanted dinner that was convenient, the very reason I was ordering online in the first place. Thankfully, I found a local Chinese restaurant whose website was mobile-responsive, and while rice and egg rolls weren’t my first choice, it was what we had for dinner.
I’ve came across this same dilemma a number of times and perhaps you can relate. While you obviously want your preference, you are willing to settle for second (or maybe even third) best if you determine that the cost (whether it be money or peace-of-mind) of your first choice is too high. Allow me to drive this point home:
If you’re the first choice in your industry, but do not have a mobile-friendly website, you could be losing business to a competitor who is less qualified than you, because you are the less convenient option.
Why? People will (almost) always sacrifice their preference for a similar product or service if it is the more convenient. This statement holds true to online searches.
Here are a few statistics from Hubspot to back up this theory:
- 54% of consumers believe that it is easier to find information on mobile-optimized sites
- 37% of consumers are more likely to purchase on a mobile-optimized site
- 27% of consumers will leave a site if it is not mobile-optimized
In fact, ABIResearch predicts that mobile commerce will account for 24.4% of overall e-commerce revenues by the end of 2017.
Is your website mobile-friendly?
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Google is committed to making sure their users are finding relevant information in the most convenient format. Therefore, they made some significant changes to how they rank companies in their mobile search results. Some of these changes may have dropped your company from Google’s mobile search results page altogether. Seeing as how the majority of online users are accessing Google (and your website!) from a mobile device (see graph below) this change could be detrimental to your business.
At Baker Labs, we will increase your company’s potency by improving your digital impact. We can do this by helping you attract more customers with a compelling, mobile-friendly website as part of your new inbound marketing strategy. Contact us for more information.
