Smartphone user statistics?
How are they even related to framing an SEO strategy?
Okay! Let me explain.
You put a lot of effort into ranking your business online.
You write posts, optimize your content, tweak your code and even nurture relationships with influencers.
All to convert your audience into subscribers or purchasers.
And, while you know it’s important to optimize for mobiles, you’re not quite convinced you should go mobile-first.
But, here’s the thing… consumers and search engines are.
Google has been prioritizing mobile-friendly sites since 2016 and will move to mobile-first indexing by September 2020. As it stands, half of all internet traffic worldwide comes from a mobile device.
What does this mean for your marketing strategy?
You need to know how mobile users behave and what they want from your business online. Which is why we’ve put together this infographic to highlight the numbers you need to know to get mobile users on board this year.
Not got time for the whole thing?
No worries!
Here are three insights from Smartphone user statistics we think will matter most to your business in 2020…
Global business is mobile business
Outside Europe and the US, the internet is mostly mobile. Almost 75% of web traffic in India and 60% in Africa is from mobile phones. So, if your business is global, your content needs to be easy to read and access on a phone.
This means:
- Creating responsive assets that work well on mobile screens
- Using accelerated mobile pages (AMP) where possible
- Creating the type of content mobile users want to see (e.g. video)
- Formatting text into short paragraphs that look good on small screens
- Optimizing for site and page-load speed
Search engines penalize non-mobile-friendly sites
Search engines increasingly penalize web pages that aren’t mobile-friendly. And, from September this year, Google is doubling down on its mobile-first policy.
From then on, your website won’t just rank lower if it doesn’t work well on phones, it might not show up in the SERPs at all.
Ouch! That hurts. Isn’t it?
If you think your site might be lagging behind, it’s better to find out sooner rather than later. You can test the mobile-friendliness of your site using a tool like Google’s mobile-friendly test.
Once you know where you are lagging, go ahead and make those changes so that you are ready for the change.
BTW, if your website is on WordPress, did you know that you can create a simple mobile friendly website with a single click. All you need to do it install the Jetpack plugin.
Half of your audience is impatient
How long do you usually wait for a website to load, if you are browsing the site on a mobile phone?
Mobile users are pretty impatient.
Someone accessing your site from a smartphone expects it to load within 2 seconds. That’s a tough target for sites with a lot of content. But if you don’t meet this expectation head-on, mobile users will bounce more often than other users.
What can you do about it? Try some of these tips:
- Upgrade your web host to a faster or better VPS service
- Reduce HTTP requests
- Compress large files like images
- Remove render-blocking JavaScript
… and more.
Smartphone user statistics for 2020 and ahead
While these are just some of the things (important ones) you can do to set yourselves up for the mobile phone revolution that is expected in 2020, it doesn’t really end here.
With manufacturers packing smartphones with more and more power, practically ready to replace your home computer, it isn’t going to be long before your audience too shifts over to smartphones.
So, it makes sense to know more about how to gear up for this switch. Isn’t it?
So let’s take a look at the rest of the stats.
Infographic courtesy UKWebHostReview