Does your business have a mobile friendly website, or do visitors still have to squint at the screen just to see what you’re all about? Perhaps you do have a mobile site, but haven’t updated it in a while?
If so, now is a crucial time for you prioritise ‘mobile-friendly’ in your online strategy. Not convinced? Consider the following stats, uncovered by an independent study conducted by Google and Ipsos in 2014:
- 4 in 5 consumers use search engines to find local information.
- 88 percent of those local searches were conducted via mobile.
- 72 percent of consumers who searched for local information on their smartphone visited a store within 5 miles.
- 50 percent of consumers who conducted a local search on their smartphone visited a store within a day.
In fact, the proliferation of the “mobile consumer” prompted Google to introduce changes to its mobile search algorithm. Since April 21 this year, searches conducted on mobile began ranking results according to both popularity and mobile-friendliness. This means that businesses which previously ranked well were punished and even concealed from results if they do not have a mobile-friendly website.
So if you have been neglecting your business mobile site or even website in general, you may be at risk of losing potential sales, competitive advantage and brand awareness.
To combat this problem, online solutions provider Fireworks Websites have recently launched a brand new website audit tool www.improvemywebsite.com.au which scans and grades your business website, then sends a personalised report back to you detailing areas for improvement.
Both the tool and report, which are completely free, will assess your website performance in crucial areas including mobile, SEO, usability and social media, making it an invaluable resource for business owners who want to stay relevant in the fast-paced online world but aren’t quite sure about where to start.
To use the tool, visit www.improvemywebsite.com.au and answer a short series of 1-click answers about your business and your online strategy.
Then simply enter in your website URL and the team of specialists at Fireworks will then compile the results from the scan and their further considerations into a comprehensive report for you.
Users then have the option to interact with a Fireworks team member and discuss the results of the report, including any necessary actions that may need to be taken.