How Does Your Website Stack Up in the Mobile Space – Test It!

Screen Shot Showing the Results of the Google Mobile Friendly Testing Tool
Screen Shot Showing the Results of the Google Mobile Friendly Testing Tool

Google continues to push and refine its message as to the importance all websites having a mobile friendly website. Just this past week on the mobile version of Google I started to see tags in front of search listings as to if the site was mobile friendly or not.

Truthfully, I believe the next step is for Google to filter out and not supply sites at all in the mobile search results that have not stepped up to create the proper mobile experience. I expect to see this happen within the next six months.

Google is serious about having a great experience for mobile users on their mobile search platform. If they do not, then users will migrate to other providers who show more relevant results. If they move, Google will lose big in the ad arena. So for Google showing the right mobile friendly results in mobile search directly equates with its own bottom-line. Miscalculate on how Google feels about mobile and you’ll be out of their index.

The great things is that Google moves slowly to make big changes like this, letting users know that they feel is important and provides tools to help site owners. Here is just one of the tools that Google has recently released: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/. It is an online tool to test just how friendly your website is.

Take the tool for a test drive to see just how your website stacks up. For now you have time to fix these problems, but you will not be able to wait forever. If you are using a legacy site, one that is not built with a responsive design and are not using a mobile rendering plugin or application to turn your old website into a mobile friendly one, you’ve just got to take action within the next six months to get there. We can help you get there. I invite you to review our responsive design options today to start on evaluating your options.

 

Interesting Data on Mobile Usage and AdWords

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McCord Web Services is a Google Partner.

I attended a Google Partner hangout this last week with four marketing reps talking about how mobile has changed their marketing plans on AdWords. The comment that really has stuck with me over the last several days is that mobile is used for research before buying and is not necessarily the device that will drive a conversion. Very Interesting!

When I think about how I use my own smartphone, that comment is spot on. Many times I will be with others or sitting in a car chatting (not driving mind you) and I will quickly do a Google search to ask a question or find out more. Although more often than not, I am not looking at mobile ads while I am getting the information I want, I am using my smartphone to perform research that I may follow-up on later.

From an account manager and advertiser point of view, depending on the product or service that you are selling, the research aspect of mobile may be crucial to your overall marketing plan. With the much smaller screen of a smartphone limiting the number of AdWords ads that can show, you’ve got to be in the number one or two spots with your ad to get action.

Although mobile is not the right place for every single business, if the research phase that would be done on a smartphone is important to your business, keep in mind that actively testing your AdWords program in the mobile arena bidding up 10 to 25% of your desktop bid may be a very smart strategy. By testing this approach over a 60 day period (a shorter time period may not be long enough to really evaluate response), you may find that mobile drives conversions and sales on desktops and tablets and the mobile click can be attributed for the actual conversion. Or, you may find that more expensive clicks from smartphones simply padded Google’s wallet and did not drive conversions.

As Google is very bullish on advertising in the mobile space and many marketers are testing mobile AND the data shows that mobile activity is a very new and exciting landscape, it is time to try strategies in your AdWords account on mobile.

Getting Your Full Value Out of Mobile

McCord Web Services is a Bing Ads Accredited Professional Company and Google AdWords Certified Partner.
McCord Web Services is a Bing Ads Accredited Professional Company and Google AdWords Certified Partner.

As the leader of online marketing Google is paving a new path into the digital world and helping advertisers on the way to understand how to market in our “always on” world. Anyone who is involved in selling knows that the new frontier is mobile and that it is changing how we market forever.

Google has done quite a few really smart things to embrace this new frontier. First, they have introduced AdWords Enhanced Campaigns which is the first step in leveraging mobile activity and advertising on smartphones to reach people where and when they are making buying decisions.

Second, Google created a partnership with DudaMobile to help advertisers get a free mobile website that can be used in the AdWords interface as the destination URL even with the DudaMobile.com domain URL.

Third, Google has done a marvelous job of training and reaching out to account managers like me to assist them with how to help move clients into the mobile arena. The seminars are excellent and topical. Although they are really in a closed by invitation arena and not widely published, much of the information has also been disseminated via Hangouts at Google+.

I personally have attended one and sometimes two, one hour seminars for at least the last eight weeks and have had a Google account manager available to assist me with mobile implementation, followup, implementation of mobile conversion tracking and assists with DudaMobile for my own clients.

The power of mobile is to not just getting click activity on mobile phones, but to understand that the real value of mobile is much bigger than that. Mobile activity drives website traffic, e-commerce activity, and increasingly foot traffic into stores. My personal feeling is that the true power of mobile to drive sales should not be discounted and should be fully evaluated for each business.

Not all businesses will need the marketing strategies that some local selling businesses may need when it comes to mobile, but even national businesses may find that mobile activity is a growing percentage of their overall online activity.

Mobile brings a whole new perspective to the marketing table. Make sure that you are testing, trying out, and really thinking about your own mobile strategy in the weeks and months to come.

Are You Focused On Building Your Mobile Empire?

Everything I have been reading lately is really pushing the growth trend of mobile and I have to say I think that the growth and opportunities for doing business and connecting with others via mobile phones and tablets is a sector to really watch. I think that for pay per click programs there are some real growth opportunities for advertisers to move into mobile before the cost per click goes up to the level of desktops. I think that more casual surfing will be done with tablets, but I don’t think that laptops will ever go away – at least not yet.

As for me, I love being untethered to my desk, with full email access on my smartphone. Not only do I do email, but I use my smartphone for a mobile hotspot to power my tablet and laptop. I use my smartphone’s navigation tools and do review deals and discounts to decide if I will visit a new store for the first time. I consider having the information at my fingertips wildly freeing. But my usage only reflects about 40% of the US market at this time. That means there is about 60% more of the population who will, in the near future, be using new smartphones to connect the way I am now. That means astronomical growth and market positioning for those businesses who embrace this new way to connect with customers or at least to give additional options to connect now.

For many the first step into the mobile market it to advertise there, and that’s a great start. AdWords allows you to target smartphones with full Internet browsers and tablets separately from desktops. What I’ve found is that for high cost keywords the mobile and tablet click prices are cheaper, they do have less impression activity, but they do still generate conversions.

Think about what you should be doing in regards to positioning your own business to take advantage of this new trend in mobile and you may just find yourself riding a new crest of traffic and sales that takes your business to the next level.