About 20 percent of my Web site traffic comes from mobile.
The number — and that it isn’t higher — isn’t really surprising. Mobile may be the new tech ecosystem, but much of my traffic comes from business people, most of whom still spend a lot of the day in an office, on a desktop or a laptop. They find my site via a blog post link, a social media profile, a recommendation, or because I gave someone my card or sent them an email. I’m not a platform, like Facebook, that’s a go-to destination or the first place you check (on your phone) when you get up in the morning or before you go to sleep at night.
Twenty percent of my traffic comes from mobile.
I saw a discussion in a business forum the other day about the changes Google has made in the last year around search. The gist of the conversation was that if mobile traffic isn’t a big deal for you then maybe you don’t have anything to worry about.
Huh?
Did I mention that 1/5 of my traffic comes from mobile?
Sure 80 percent doesn’t, but what if my next big client can’t find me or can’t navigate my site on a smartphone because I’m not mobile-smart?
Google has since last year been prioritizing mobile-responsive sites in its search results. Then, in February, the search giant rolled out accelerated mobile pages (AMP), which upped the ante and created a more “instant” load. (Think of it as Google’s answer to Facebook Instant Articles.) And, yes, there’s a WordPress AMP plug-in. Google Webmaster Tools said a few of my old posts aren’t AMP-compatible, but almost everything else has apparently been indexed without a problem.
You can’t ignore the mobile ecosystem.
Benedict Evans, who watches tech trends, has a terrific new presentation on mobile. In it, he talks about how mobile completes the journey to “a computer in every pocket,” and he posits that mobile is the new tech ecosystem. Evans’ stats on mobile use over wifi are instructive in understanding how we use our phones– everywhere — and what this means for both consumers and businesses.
Dig into the presentation, and then I dare you to say that mobile doesn’t matter (or matter yet) to your business.
Click here if the presentation doesn’t show up.
