Mobile – 2015 is the year where mobile search activity surpasses desktop search activity. If you’ve not carved out your mobile strategy in 2015 you are already behind. With Google set to expand mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal on April 21, 2015, the time is now to be optimizing for mobile. According to reports from eMarketer, globally speaking, mobile traffic is about 30% of all internet activity. I don’t see that number going down anytime soon. Do you? As a result you should be taking measures to ensure that your site moves to being a responsive site, which means ensuring that the same HTML is being sent to all devices using CSS to alter the rendering of the page on the device.

We have also produced posts offering tips on how to be mobile-friendly in the search results as seen in this great postfrom Caroline from last month.

Here are some interesting mobile related stats that you might be interested in as we enter Mobile-egeddon. (Data is from various sources as indicated).

• 1525% increase in mobile data usage forecasted between 2010 and 2015. (Source: Mediative)
• There are over 6.8 billion people who use mobile phones – that’s roughly 87% of the World’s population (Source Wikipedia)
• 80% of Internet users own a smartphone (Source: Global Web Index)
• 56% of Americans have a smartphone and 34% of adults have a tablet device (Source: Pew Research 2013)
• 72% of consumers want mobile-friendly sites (Source: Google Research)
• Globally, mobile traffic is about 30 percent of all internet activity. (based on data from StatsCounter Global Stats)
• In fact in North America mobile and tablet traffic is at around 36% (based on data from StatsCounter Global Stats)
• 67% of consumers are willing to buy a product or use a service on a mobile-friendly site (Source: Google Research)
• 53% of mobile searches have local intent (Source: Mediative Labs 2012)
• 70% of mobile searches result in action being taken within an hour as opposed a week for desktop (Source: Mediative Labs 2012)
• 67% of online shopping carts are abandoned (Baymard Institute)
• 5-7 seconds is all you have to convert a user that they are on the right page with relevant results to their search (Source: Baymard Institute)
• 45% of consumers wish mobile payment services were more secure
• 41% of consumers feel shopping on mobile websites discloses their mobile phone number to the website, which they would like to avoid.
• 33% of consumers would like mobile websites to have the same content, features and functionality as a standard website. (See Google people want full functionality).
• 32% of consumers wish mobile websites were easier to navigate through the purchase process.
• 73% of consumers find mobile websites load times to be too slow and 74% say they will leave the site after waiting 5 seconds or more.
• 27% of websites are misconfigured for smartphone searches, which leads to an expected drop in traffic of 68% (Source: Bright Edge Mobile Share Report)
• 62% of organic searches display different results on desktop vs. smartphone (Source: Bright Edge Mobile Share Report)
• “Mobile shoppers put ease of use foremost when it comes to mobile shopping sites, with 48% of respondents citing it as the most important quality of a mobile site they visit,” (Source: MediaPost.)
• Search is the most common starting point for mobile research. 48% start on search engines. (Source: Google)
• Consumers are spending time researching on their smartphones (15 hours/week) (Source: Google)
• 69% of consumers expect businesses to be within five miles of their location (Source Google)
• 89% of participants admitted to searching for a local business on their smartphone once a week or more with 58% searching at least daily. (Source: Mediative Spotlight on Local Mobile Consumer Search Behaviour: Part Two– Aug. 2013)
• Total mobile engagement on social has grown 55% in the past year (Source: comScore)
• 73 percent of mobile searches trigger follow-up actions (SearchEngineLand)
• Smartphone use most often occurs during travel (72 percent), in restaurants (64 percent) and in stores (63 percent) (Source: Vocus Blog)
• Tablet use most often occurs in the living room (88 percent) or bedroom (79 percent compared to at work (24 percent) (Source: Vocus)
• 89% of consumer media time in mobile apps (Source: Nielsen)
• 11% of consumer media time in mobile web (Source: Nielsen)
• 61% of mobile searches result in a phone call (Source: Google)
• 18% of local searches lead to sales (Source: Google)
• 1 in 3 searches on a smartphone occur right before a consumer visits a store (Source: Google)
• 15% of in-store activities involve conducting smartphone searches about a product or for a price comparison (Source: Google)
• Tablet users access search 73.9% of the time, more than any other activity (eMarketer)
• 69% of Marketers believe that their website is currently mobile-friendly (gShift Study)
• 78% of digital marketers were aware of the upcoming algorithm change from Google (gShift)
• 52% of digital marketers believe that their web presence rankings in search will be impacted (gShift)
• 55% of digital marketers stated that they do not currently track mobile rank data (gShift)
• 40% of mobile searches happen between 6pm and 12pm (Source: MarketingPilgrim)There are 224 million monthly active app users in the US (Source: Search Engine Journal)
• During the last four years, the percentage of apps used 11 or more times increased to 39% in 2014 (Source: Localytics)
• 94% of smartphone owners look for local information on their phone (Source: Televox)
• 40% of searchers will click another mobile result if a site’s not mobile friendly (Source: Icebreaker Consulting)
• More than 2 billion mobile users will make a mobile commerce transaction by the end of 2017 (Source: Juniper Research)
• Smartphone users have doubled in Canada between 2010 and 2014. (Source: Mediative)
• British Columbia and Ontario have the highest smartphone usage in Canada at roughly 30% (Source: Mediative)
• US adults spend an average of 2 hours and 51 minutes a day using mobile devices (Source: eMarketer)
• From one of our very own case studies, after working with Mediative’s Business Districts Lifestyle Zone as part of a local/ mobile strategy, click through rates were 8X higher than the industry average for luxury car brand’s mobile ads.

Infographic on Local & Mobile Search Activity:

https://think.withgoogle.com/databoard/#lang=en-us&infographic=6c9f67c7e9549a07440530c08d8126af39da71cb 

What does mobile search mean for you? It should mean engagement and visibility as it is not a matter of “mobile is coming”, the fact is mobile is here. Content is still king when it comes to desktop or mobile, the question is from a technical perspective, from a digital marketing perspective and from a user engagement perspective are you prepared for not only the April 21, 2015 changes, but for mobile and app engagement moving forward?

Is your site mobile friendly in the eyes of Google? Take the test now: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly

Need help with a mobile strategy? We can help with making that connection with mobile users by understanding the places, circumstances and moments that trigger purchase intent.

Happy Mobilegeddon Eve!

About the Author
Jody has been specializing in organic search for the better part of the past decade. Having spent seven years with Mediative(formerly Enquiro), Jody has dealt with some of the largest brands in the world reviewing sites, providing insightful analysis and mapping online strategies for our clients. Jody has contributed articles to leading industry resources such as Search Engine Guide, Web Pro News Canada, Search Engine Journal and his own blog Marketing-Jive.com. Jody has created and developed SEO for Website Redesign solutions, has prepared numerous SEO best practices and is an advocate of continuous improvement. Jody plays a key role in helping Mediativedeliver cutting edge search strategies, assisting clients with adapting to the ever-changing online universe.