In our increasingly mobile world, having a mobile website has become a necessity. Given that the average real estate agent’s website has about 15 per cent of its users visiting it from a mobile device, not having a mobile-friendly website is throwing away valuable users.
In response to the fact that 48 per cent of Google Searches are performed on mobile devices Google made an algorithm update recently. This change has been dubbed “Mobilegeddon” (dun dun dun).
The update skews heavily towards mobile-friendly websites, displaying them above their non-mobile counterparts for mobile search results. Experts predict it will impact at least 11 per cent of websites currently on the web. The impact of Mobilegeddon on real estate search results, however, is significantly higher for Canadian real estate websites due to the large number of non-mobile sites.
For websites that do offer a mobile experience, industry experts expect to see a 4.7 per cent increase in traffic as they usurp the traffic of non-mobile sites.
So, is your website ready for the new mobile world?
The benevolent minds at Google have made it easy to determine if your website is mobile friendly with a 30-second mobile test at Google’s mobile friendly diagnostic tool.
Websites that aren’t mobile-friendly share a number of common characteristics:
- The website requires significant scrolling to find the needed information.
- Its menu is difficult to navigate.
- Zooming in and out is consistently required to read the menu and/or content.
- Buttons are too small to click with your finger or thumb.
- Clicking on a phone number does not dial the number.
- Contact forms are difficult to use, including failing to auto-fill, being improperly displayed and having hard-to-navigate form fields.
If you’re ready to make the move to mobile, here are a number of mobile-oriented web design elements to look for:
1. Responsive design
A responsive website has a design that shrinks to fit any screen size. This eliminates zooming in and out and makes it more easily navigable for your users. Responsive websites will rearrange and resize their images, videos, text and other content to fit to the width of the mobile screen. An alternative to responsive design is to use a mobile-only website. Instead of scaling content to fit, it creates a slimmed-down version. A mobile-only site offers basic, static and easy-to-access information. These websites are fast-loading and easy to use but you do sacrifice user experience.
2. Load time
The average mobile user will leave your website within seven or eight seconds if your website hasn’t loaded. The faster it loads, the better user experience it will offer and the lower bounce rate (users who leave the website immediately) you will have. Load time can be drastically decreased by reducing the file sizes of images and website sliders.
3. Menu and navigation
Mobile websites are all about easy navigation. Standard menus require significant zooming in and out, so navigation is vastly improved with a mobile, drop-down menu.
4. Text
Text on a mobile website should not only be easy to read but also easy to skim (mobile users are generally looking for specific information quickly). Break up text into short blocks instead of long paragraphs and use sub headings regularly.
5. Contact information
Many mobile users will be going on your website to find your contact information. Make your contact information as easy as possible to find by making it front and centre.
6. Click to call
Ideally, you should have your phone number displayed in text that is click-to-call. A click-to-call phone number can be easily dialled by clicking on it, which encourages people to contact you.
7. Mobile-friendly contact forms
Continuing with the contact-information streak, you also want your contact forms to be mobile-friendly. This means enabling auto-fill and making them responsive so that they can be easily navigated and display clearly.
8. Mobile call to action
Many call-to-action buttons become misplaced or disappear entirely on mobile websites. Don’t miss your opportunity to catch leads from mobile users by making your website’s lead-generation call-to-action forms and buttons attractive across all mobile devices.
9. Test
The only way to understand your mobile presence is to test it. Use Google’s mobile test tool to get their thumbs up. Then, navigate it thoroughly looking for areas for improvement. Ideally, have some of the least technologically abled people in your life give it a whirl.
The bad news about Mobilegeddon is that going mobile is becoming even more important. The good news – there are great technologies that can make you a mobile rock star.
Robin Wilding is the creative mind behind The Lead Gen Factory and The Realtor Pipeline. The Lead Gen Factory is a boutique real estate online marketing company hyper-focused on lead generation; The Realtor Pipeline is a digital DIY platform showing Realtors how to generate online leads, lead conversion, Social Media Marketing, sales pipeline building, and more. She also leads The Realtor Pipeline Facebook group, a group for Realtors to learn new online techniques, technology and share best practices.
