The Rise of Smartphones
The rise of smartphones has ushered in an all new generation of the internet. Webmasters are quickly converting code for their websites to be compatible on the smaller browsers that iPhones and HTCs bring to the table. More and more people are rarely using their home desktop to browse the internet and often rely on their smartphones or tablets for much of their browsing needs.
Related Posts:
The State of Mobile: The Growth Potential for & Underutilization of Mobile Marketing
Optimizing Websites for Mobile Gadgets
What does this mean for businesses?
This means that businesses need to change their tactics too, when it comes to attracting audiences to their website. No longer can you rely on people browsing through the first 2 or 3 pages of Google and maybe they will click on your website. When people are using their smartphones or tablets to browse the internet the screen is normally much smaller than when browsing on a desktop or laptop. Many people are in a hurry as well so they won't scroll through pages and pages with their finger on their phone.This makes it essential to appear in the top 3 results on Google for your targeted keywords.
Analysis of Mobile Browsing
It is not easy to achieve that top ranking in google but it is worth every penny spent to attain it. Studies show that 40% of clicks go to the first result in google while the second and third spot in google are hit with 15% and 10% of clicks respectively. That leaves 35% of clicks for the hundreds of pages that come after. This is huge when you are trying to gain a customer base and promote sells. Securing that number one spot in Google for your main keyword has the potential to make or break your business. Now that more and more people are using smartphones for the majority of the time it makes it even more imperative to stay in the top few results on google. Because of the rise of smartphones even more clicks are going to start going to the top 3 results and that need to stay up there is only going to increase from here.
What SEO Can Do
SEO can be your key to success when it comes to ranking your website in the top few results. SEO has the ability to drive your site to the top of the Google listings. Developing an SEO strategy for your website or even just contracting the job out to a firm to do it for you can almost guarantee your websites success. Following through with SEO tactics will drive people to your site and usher in thousands of sales. Before SEO was important to stay in the top results, but now it is more important than ever to rank in those top spots.
The next generation of the internet is here. Mobile browsing is becoming integrated into every day life and as that starts to take hold we must also develop new techniques and strategies to stay one step ahead of the technology cycle.
on
Excellent “modern”-type post you have here. Smartphones are taking over the world (not literally) and lots of the people I know, friends and family included, own a smartphone. I may just be speaking for the business-type people when I say that we use smartphones to help significantly with our companies.
I use my HTC phone for browsing on the web to read more info about things like improving business, SEO, and others.
on
Thanks for the comment toughtrasher. If smartphones literally take over the world, call me or wait…don’t call me!? 😛
on
Yes, mobile development is where it’s at, although I think there will still be value in desktop browser use. You made a good comment about search engines though. Even more for mobile browsers, one will need to be at the top of the pack of search engines. Potential customers will scroll down very little before they’ll make a selection.
on
I know there is some debate over whether it’s proper to have a separate layout for mobile devices, but it’s also critical to have a good user experience once you get the traffic for being in the top listings otherwise its wasted. I’m personally in favor of having a customized layout for mobile sites that make it easy to drive conversions, rather than try to cram all of a site’s functionality into a mobile web experience and confuse the user. It’s difficult for the user to have to zoom in to click tiny links or fumble around with other UI conventions that were intended for desktop browsing.
on
Thanks for your comment! Yes, I agree that having a customized layout for mobile browsing is necessary to maintaining a target audience’s attention. The easier the navigation will more likely lead to a conversion.