The Importance of Mobile Device Accessibility

We are living in a time where for most people internet access is highly important. 89% of smartphone owners will use it throughout the day to access the internet, for a variety of things such as research, social networking, watching videos and shopping.

Google recently ran a study on the purchasing habits of ‘smartphone searchers’ to try and understand how people are using their mobile devices to make informative decisions when shopping.

Here are just some of the findings:

Where smartphones are most commonly used:
93% at home
87% on-the-go
77% in a shop
73% restaurant
72% at work

Most common types of searches on smartphones:
57% news
51% dining/restaurant information
51% navigational
49% entertainment
47% shopping
40% sports
37% games

Most common types of websites visited on smartphones:
77% search engines
65% social networking
46% retail websites
43% video sharing websites
38% general consumer websites

And most interestingly…

Actions taken after accessing local search results:
61% called the business
59% visited the business
58% looked up the business on a map
54% visited the website
36% made an in-store purchase
22% made an online purchase
22% recommended business to someone else
20% read or wrote a review about the business
19% added the business to favourites list

From the information gathered, it’s clear to see that mobile devices are becoming an extension of our desktop computer and are transforming our shopping behaviour. Its important to remember that people searching through their smartphone will usually have different needs to someone browsing the internet, on a desktop PC. Smartphone searchers are generally on-the-go and have a need that they want fulfilled quickly and accurately. If you do not have an operational mobile version of your website you risk losing business as consumers tire of excessive page loading times and incompatible forms or functions.

Did you know?

Google also gives more value to mobile sites in searches made from a mobile device. So if your competitors do not yet run a mobile version of their site you are missing out on an opportunity to rank higher than they do for your keywords in mobile search.

With more and more people owning smartphones and using them to access the web for search, combined with statistics like these generated by Google, many online businesses should be asking themselves ‘can we afford NOT to have a mobile version of our website?’