Mastering mobile – 5 tips from Google
For better or worse, smartphones have changed the world. More than half of all traffic to Rightmove now comes from mobiles. Google is seeing a similar trend, too, with mobile search traffic overtaking desktop traffic in October last year. So if mobile isn’t high on your priority list, it’s time to make 2016 the year you get your mobile strategy sorted.
In this article, Duncan Watts, Industry Manager at Google UK, shares his top tips on making mobile work for your agency.
Make sure your website looks great on mobiles.
This should be your number one priority. If most of your visitors are viewing your website on their mobile, you’ll want it to display properly to give them the very best experience.
Use Google’s free Mobile-Friendly Test to see how your website stacks up and the PageSpeed tool for advice on how you can make your website run faster on mobile.
Work out what your audience wants.
Firstly, figure out what audiences want to do with your website. How? Start by asking them! Also take a look at what other agents are doing on their websites that you could take inspiration from.
What’s the experience of someone trying to find you and connect with you online? Take 5 minutes to search for your brand and you’ll find out, and work out where there might be room for improvement.
Appoint a mobile champion.
Regardless of the size of your business, make it part of someone’s role to make sure mobile is high on the agenda. They can be responsible for bringing together those who need to be involved in creating and maintaining your mobile strategy. Give them responsibility for understanding what percentage of traffic comes from mobile and making it a key metric on your management dashboard.
It’s not just about your website – think other channels, too.
With 30% of emails opened on a mobile, you need to make sure they’re displaying well on all the main devices. Make sure any advertising you’re doing using Google Adwords uses mobile-specific formats (find out more here). Or if you’re using more traditional offline media, think about how it can be turbo-charged by using mobile-friendly QR codes or picture scanning.
Measure and test everything.
Let the data tell the story. Invest time in understanding how people are interacting with your website using tools like Google Analytics and shape your approach accordingly.
How are you going to master mobile in 2016? Tweet us at @Rightmovepro to let us know.
