The future of mobile marketing
Written by Zoe Poxon
A recent survey conducted by Flurry revealed that we spend over 5 hours on mobile devices each day. This tells us that there is a vast and engaged mobile audience out there which we could be tapping into, and it’s one that is growing year on year. Pretty much everyone has a mobile device, and there are plenty of ways to reach the right people.
So, what can you do to keep up with this growth and take full advantage of mobile marketing in 2018? Here are some things to look out for.
Google’s mobile-first indexing
In 2016 Google announced that they’re switching to ‘mobile-first indexing’. This means that Google will start to base its ranking of your website on its mobile version and no longer its desktop version (even if someone searches for you from a desktop).
If we look at some stats on how many mobile searches are made today, it’s not surprising why this shift is happening. Mobile search currently drives more traffic than desktop. And according to official Google statements last year, over 50% of searches are made from a mobile device. We can only expect this to grow in the future.
What does this mean for your business? To ensure that your site ranks as well as it can, make sure that you have a few different versions of your site available in different screen sizes, and that each version is optimised for search. You might even want to consider creating an app as the best way forward.
Voice search
Google previously reported that 20% of mobile queries were voice searches. And by this point we’ve all heard of Amazon Alexa and Google Home, which are perfect examples of how far voice search has come and how fast it’s growing. Other sources show that 40% of adults use voice search once a day, and that voice searches have increased over 35x since 2008.
My point is, voice search is (kind of) the new kid on the block, and in the world of mobile marketing, it’s one to watch. It works by aggregating the best and most popular answers that are being searched for around a particular topic. To ensure that you stand the best chance of showing up in the voice search results, make sure your key content is featured on your main website pages. This makes it easier for Google to scan your website and pick out the most relevant content and answers to a query. If you’re lucky, you might even get featured by Google in a ‘Featured Snippet’ – a search result that appears in a card at the top of the results page, which includes a summary of the answer. It looks something like this:
The summary is extracted programmatically from content on the web page. When Google recognises that a query is asking a question, it finds pages with an answer, and shows the top result as a featured snippet.
If you want to feature as top content, a useful tip is to have quality and credible answers to common ‘what is…’, ‘what if…’ and ‘how to…’ type questions on your mobile site. To understand more about how Google determines ad position and ad ranking, they’ve written an article to tell you everything you need to know.
Fast loading websites
Developing a quick and easy user experience is one of the simplest but most important elements of successful mobile marketing. DoubleClick’s research states that 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take over 3 seconds to load.
Your website alone is a strong marketing tool as it should hold all your key content that will sell your product or service. Don’t let delays in loading time be the reason your audience is turning away.
Mobile advertising
There are many more specific ways to boost your mobile marketing efforts. You could use mobile advertising on websites, in-apps and on social media. Or try adapting your digital content to make sure it looks great on mobile screens (e.g. social media posts may need to be expanded / images may not appear as good as they do on desktop). And let’s not forget the option to advertise within mobile messaging apps. It’s a great way to reach a growing and hyper engaged audience – Facebook Messenger has over 1.3 billion active users, and with LinkedIn Sponsored Content, you can tap into their audience of over 500 million professionals.
Today, people spend more time looking for answers on their mobiles than on their desktops. Whether B2B or B2C, it’s every brands’ responsibility to provide answers to these questions, and to ensure their websites are tailored to provide a streamlined mobile experience.
If you’re looking to boost your mobile marketing, get in touch today to find out how we can help you.
