Marketing departments are usually a flurry of activity, juggling between social media services, SEO content and a number of other campaigns. But one trend should be a high priority in any marketing department right now – and that is a mobile-first mindset.

There are so many reasons why adopting a mobile-first approach to web design and marketing is so crucial these days. Discover more here.

Why smartphones matter for marketers

You’ve probably noticed yourself just how much smartphones and mobile everything is dominating right now. But here are some statistics to back up our qualitative judgements:

• Over 5 billion people own a smartphone right now
• Around 95% of the population of developed countries use a smartphone daily
• The average amount of time spent on a smartphone is 3.5 hours per day
• Mobile app shopping is up by more than 100%
• More than 50% of eCommerce sales are predicted to take place on a smartphone by next year

So, what is a mobile-first approach?

A mobile-first approach centres around the way a company website can perform on smaller screens with less computing power, i.e. your smartphone. The content on your website and the way the site operates are both fundamental to the mobile-first approach.

Other aspects of a mobile-first approach may include developing a smartphone app that can create push notifications to market products and services.  

Why mobile-friendliness matters

In 2016, Google started to index websites based on how easy they were to view and use on a mobile device. They included new indexing criteria because they noticed just how many people were starting to use smartphones for internet searches.

Therefore, if your website catered well to mobile users then it would rank better than other websites that didn’t. And everyone knows that a position on Google’s first page for your search term is crucial for maintaining or growing your market share.

So, did your business miss the boat in 2016?

Even though Google started considering the mobile-friendliness of a website in 2016, they still prioritised website performance from a desktop. If your website was not the most friendly when viewed on a mobile, you may have gotten away with it.

But not now!

As of September 2020, Google is rumoured to be applying more scrutiny to websites that are not making mobile visitors’ experiences as good as they should be. Even semi-mobile-friendly websites may fall down the Google rankings.

Maybe it is time to call your local web designer again…

Common mistakes on mobile-second websites

Websites that are not paying enough attention to how they perform on mobile devices, usually:

• Use the wrong images and don’t format them correctly
• Have too much text and not enough blank space
• Don’t have a responsive website design specifically for mobiles
• Have discrepancies between desktop and mobile versions (this isn't ideal!)

Get your mobile-first website correct with WEBPRO Creative

For a website that performs optimally on a smartphone and reaches more people, don’t hesitate to ask our web designers for help. We have lots of mobile-first solutions to maintain your Google ranking and your market share.