Statistics suggest there are 16 million smartphone users in Australia and this is projected to grow to nearly 19 million users by 2021. With the prevalence of 4G network coverage and the expected launch of 5G networks soon, mobile internet surfing is only going to increase.
Mobile friendly stats
The importance of mobile friendly websites is not new. If you check out this article you will find the results of a 2012 Google survey. Here are some interesting statistics:
- 74% of visitors were more likely to return to mobile friendly websites
- 61% were likely to leave if a site wasn’t mobile friendly, and
- 67% were more likely to buy at a mobile friendly website
It wasn’t until 2015 that Google started to change their algorithms to prioritise mobile websites but the evidence was already there.
Reasons to go mobile friendly
Here are three reasons why you need to make sure your website is mobile friendly:
It’s what your customers want and they expect you to provide it
The statistics don’t lie. As you can see above, your customers want mobile-friendly websites. Customers return to mobile friendly websites. Customers leave sites that aren’t mobile friendly. Mobile friendly websites make money. If you are going to invest money in a website then it’s important to make sure that it is a mobile friendly website. You need to do this to ensure you get the proper return on investment from your website.
Google may penalise you if you don’t have a mobile friendly website
As mentioned Google has changed their engine-ranking algorithms to favour mobile friendly websites, and penalise these websites that aren’t yet mobile friendly. If you have a mobile friendly website your website could rank highly. If you don’t have a mobile friendly website then you will be penalised. If you are not penalised yet, you will be.
You’ll lose business (if you haven’t already)
For both of the reasons mentioned above, if you don’t have a mobile friendly website then you’re probably going to lose business. Not only are people less likely to purchase from your website if they do come across it on your mobile site, there’s a possibility that they won’t even find your website.
Your website needs to be mobile friendly. Hopefully the statistics mentioned above and the explanatory points are enough to convince you of this. If you need help to make your website mobile friendly please get in touch.
