• Ensuring your website is optimised for mobile is vital to its success. If you don't, you could be missing out on sales.
• But how can you make sure your site is mobile-friendly and compatible on multiple devices?
• Keep reading to find out how to check your mobile website traffic, and three tips to help you optimise for mobile devices.

Having a website is important for all businesses in this digital age, but having a website is no longer enough.

Gone are the days where people only experience the internet on a desktop, people want information and they want it right now, on the go, using their mobile or tablet.

The number of people viewing websites on their mobile or tablet is growing exponentially and has been since 2007 when it represented a mere 0.7% of browsing activity. Now it represents upwards of 30% of overall traffic depending on the industry.

How to Check Your Own Mobile Traffic

To check your mobile traffic yourself, go into your Google Analytics account and go to Audience > Mobile > Overview. Check your engagement statistics like bounce rate, pages per session, and average time on site for users on a mobile or tablet compared to desktop users.

If you don’t have a mobile-friendly site you are losing sales - because users are not just using mobiles to browse, they are actively looking to buy and make enquiries. If your site is not providing a good user experience in order to complete those tasks then I can guarantee that instead of pinching and zooming, visitors will be going straight back to where they came from and finding another provider.

Google Thinks It’s Important (And so Should You)

What’s been referred to as “Mobilegeddon”, Google has recently updated its ranking algorithm to reward websites that are mobile-friendly and rank them higher in search engines.

 Search engine traffic can be a huge sales/lead source for businesses and if you don’t stay up to date then you could start to lose this source of the traffic to your site and the sales/leads that result from it.

How to Optimise Your Website for Mobile 

There are 3 options when making sure your website is mobile-friendly: 

1. You edit your current site to be responsive
2. Upgrade to a responsive site If your desktop site was built a few years ago.
3. Using a mobile site and redirecting users

1. You edit your current site to be responsive

This is probably the cheapest option if you have a desktop site that you like and don’t need to upgrade. It involves editing the backend code of your site so that it adapts to whatever size screen a user is viewing it on.

2. Upgrade to a responsive site If your desktop site was built a few years ago

It’s time for an upgrade anyway - the best way is to upgrade your site to a responsive website that looks great and will help you achieve your business goals.

3. Using a mobile site and redirecting users

This is probably the worst option but still better than not having a mobile-friendly site. This involves having 2 different sites, a mobile-friendly site, and a desktop site.

These sites have different content and different designs and the user is shown the appropriate site based on what platform they are viewing on. Sites using an m.example.com.au domain are using this strategy, however, having a completely responsive site is a better option and easier to manage.

Final Note

Now you know how important this is, and how to get it up to date -- now it’s time to take action. The good news is that there are still a lot of businesses who have not kept up to date in this area so you can still get ahead of your competition. However, if you leave it too late, you will be left behind and your business will suffer because of it.