At this point, to say that mobile devices are important for digital marketers is something of a dramatic understatement.
If someone were to tell you that mobile devices were poised to overtake desktops and laptops in terms of Internet usage, you might think to yourself “Smartphones are everywhere so yeah, I can see that happening.”
When you realize that this actually already happened back in 2014, you get a much better indication of exactly what you’re dealing with.
Yet at the same time, mobile in general is still relatively new – especially as far as marketing is concerned.
It’s a wealth of untapped potential just waiting to be taken advantage of by someone who knows what they’re doing and if you want that “someone” to be you, you’ll need to keep a few key things in mind.
SEO is Now Mobile and Mobile is Now SEO
In terms of search engine optimization, gone are the days where all you had to do was make sure you had the right volume of keywords across your website and your high search rankings were all but a guarantee.
Google has recently announced that they were changing the way they indexed websites in a pretty significant way, building a mobile first index so powerful it will likely alter the way desktop search results are generated, too.
Google has made it very clear that sites that offer a rich, valuable, mobile-friendly experience will be weighed more favorably than those that don’t.
To do this you need to not only embrace responsive Web design practices but also serve structured markup that is relevant, guarantee that your mobile site is indexable by Google bot and more.
Optimizing for mobile and building a mobile friendly website as part of your SEO strategy in 2017 isn’t just the right thing to do.
It doesn’t just let you reach a wider segment of your audience in the way they prefer. In essence, the answer to the question “why is it so important for me to have a mobile site?” is an incredibly simple one: because Google just told you so.
You Need an App and You Need It Now
Because so much of the appeal of smartphones and other mobile devices was an app-based experience in the first place, it should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody that this is where mobile marketing is headed.
According to Smartinsights, an incredible 90% of all time spent on a mobile device is spent inside an app, with Web browsers coming in a very distant second.
Messaging, social media access, entertainment – it doesn’t actually matter what you’re talking about. Users want a rich, mobile-first experience and they want it now.
Therefore, it stands to reason that if you really want to unlock the true potential and sheer marketing power that mobile has to offer, you need to give people what they want, how they want it.
It’s About the Experience
Whether it’s an SEO strategy that helps you get noticed by mobile users or a responsive web design that makes your site easier to navigate, the mobile platform is about more than just looking pretty on a small device with a touch-screen interface.
People are drawn to the mobile platform because it offers simplicity. It gives them an experience that is free from the decades of clutter and anti-user, intrusive practices that the desktop world is now entrenched in.
It’s sleek, sophisticated and forward-thinking all wrapped up in one beautiful little word: experience.
If you truly want to make waves with your mobile marketing, you need to design with that experience in mind FIRST and everything else second.
What you’re offering should compliment the way consumers are already using their mobile devices enhancing their experience that drew them to the platform in the first place.
For more insights like these, consider participating in events like the 2017 Content Marketing Conference.
You’ll learn all about the latest tips, tricks and best practices in the world of mobile and digital marketing in general.
Helping to make sure that the first impression you make between you and a new customer is always the best possible one it can be.