Now that more than half of all time spent shopping online is done via mobile devices, mobile commerce is growing three times faster than overall e-commerce. In its “Spotlight on Modern Retail 2015,” NRF found that during the first three quarters of 2014, retailers reported their mobile sales grew a whopping 87 percent!
To meet these quickly changing usage patterns, Google is again adapting its algorithms to help users discover more mobile-friendly content. On April 21, Google will expand its mobile-friendliness ranking signal to make it even easier for users to find ‘mobile-friendly’ websites in search results.
According to Google, “This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.” And if anyone wants to test mobile web pages, Google provides a handy tool: The Mobile Friendly Test.
Mobile-Optimized Site Search Boosts SEO
Heavily contributing to the ‘mobile-friendly’ signal will be whether or not visitors, after landing on a mobile page, can complete the tasks they wanted to accomplish by solely using the mobile site.
For instance, when visitors using tablets search for new running shoes on Sports Authority, the company’s mobile-friendly site helps them easily find and buy the shoes they want, which in turn will help Sports Authority fare better in Google rankings after the April 21 algorithm change.
Mobile site search is a vital part of delivering a satisfying shopping experience to mobile users as it helps visitors quickly and easily engage with the site. Given mobile’s space and speed challenges, the search box is the best gateway to finding products and content on mobile sites. That in turn has a big impact on engagement metrics such as conversion rate, bounce rate, average time on site, average pages requested per session and more, which has a direct domain-wide impact on its ‘mobile-friendly’ signal and mobile search ranking.
For a complete guide to providing mobile shoppers with a great user experience, download the new white paper Site Search and the Mobile User Experience.
Mobile 101 – New Webinar!
Join us on Tuesday, March 24 at 10:00 a.m. PDT for a new SLI Webinar, Mobile 101 – Best Practices, to learn more about how to convert mobile shoppers with an engaging mobile user experience (and in turn, boost your mobile search ranking!). Registration is open until 8 a.m. PDT on March 24, plus an on-demand version of the webinar will be available soon.
