The numbers are clear- mobile visibility is essential. If your online business is not optimized for mobile you are missing out on major traffic.
Take a look at the facts:
- Users spend 34% more time consuming digital media on mobile apps than they do on PCs. (Mobile Distribution Report)
- Mobile-friendliness is a Google ranking signal
- Internet Retailer insiders have seen their mobile traffic double, according to the 2016 Guide to E-Commerce Platform Selection, in the past two years
The SEO power of one website, one URL
That said, what’s the best way to move forward with mobile? Going responsive means you can have a single website that easily adapts to all devices- desktop, smartphones, or tablets. A single website also means a single URL, so your e-retail site ranks higher in Google search.
Some companies do choose to maintain two separate websites- one for desktop, one for mobile, but this causes SEO value to be divided between the two sites, lowering both. Two sites also require major effort to maintain different code sets, and few businesses want or are equipped to deal with that kind of extra work.
Everyone’s doing it
According to the Internet Retailer e-commerce report, almost 95% of e-retailers planning to replatform will be implementing responsive design on the new site. Of this overwhelming majority, nearly half will choose to do everything from a single site; they cite the lower cost of building a single site as a major factor in this decision.
What to expect
It is only in the past five years that developers have made inroads in responsive design, and there are still kinks to be worked out. Companies with huge SKU-lists worry that small-screen viewing limits ease of navigation; at the same time, others worry that mobile icons may be confusing to some shoppers. Consumer data usage is yet another concern, though this is solved with hybrid or adaptive responsive design.
Solutions are coming each and every day and while this is good for business, it also means that e-retailers need to pay attention to how the mobile responsiveness landscape evolves.
Stay up-to-date in constantly shifting digital world by downloading Internet Retailer 2016 Guide to E-Commerce Platform Selection for more stats, digital commerce strategies, and insider insights.
Check out our other two posts in this series:
- Searching for Shopping Cart Solutions in 2016: The Replatforming Imperative and
- On-premises vs. the cloud: Can you lower TCO without compromising server performance?
