These days the question isn’t so much “Do you have a mobile strategy?”, but “How is mobile doing for you?”
Mobile presence is a must for local search for the future, and if you’re late to the party, we would like to share a few things you should take into account if you’d like to receive your fair share (and more!) of the local search market.
Reasons why you need a mobile presence
Part of this lies in being aware of what your market is doing with their mobile devices. Here are a couple eye-opening statistics to help us all get a grasp on just how important this is:
- A whopping 97 percent of people look online for products or services in their local area.
- A full 73 percent of those mobile searches lead to visitors and conversions.
- It is real time: 70 percent of those searchers act on them within an hour.
- They’ll use it in your store: 15 percent of consumers will use their smartphone to price shop after they’re in your store.
What you can do to take advantage of mobile for local search
Here are a few ways you can make sure that your business is able to be found locally via mobile devices.
Make sure you’re mobile ready – Making the effort to get a mobile version of your site available is key. Access your site and see what the user experience is, and adjust accordingly. Don’t simply assume it will all work out. You’ve got fewer than 10 seconds to create a good impression, and if your site isn’t even loaded in that time, well…
Take care with font and button sizes – Since your screen is obviously a great deal smaller, you have to make the demands on your readers less challenging. Don’t overload them with big sections of small text, and likewise, make sure any buttons you would like clicked are large enough to easily touch.
Engage with your visitors – Just having your site be mobile ready isn’t enough: you have to engage with people who are wanting to communicate with you there as well. Mobile is very much a social medium, so you should treat it as such.
Claim and optimize any directory listings – Make sure to optimize any local search directory listings you find or create with consistent names, addresses and phone numbers. Some of these sites can really help you, if you only take the time.
