By now, you fully understand that having a mobile website is essential to your local search success. However, do you know what your mobile site should look like or what kinds of features it should have? In more general terms, do you know what mobile users want from your site?
As reported by Adam Stetzer of Search Engine Watch, the experts at HubShout recently did a study in which they polled 450 mobile users about their mobile-browsing habits. Their intent was to find out exactly what consumers are looking for in a mobile site.
Their findings were not shocking. According to the study, 94% of mobile users have used their phones to search for local businesses at some point. Of those people, 61% search for local businesses frequently or daily. Obviously, this proves what we and every other online marketer have been saying for the past couple of years: Mobile search optimization is crucial for local businesses.
But we already know this. Those stats are just the jumping-off point to demonstrate the large number of customers you would be neglecting if you didn’t incorporate the following pieces of information:
- 93% of users use a smartphone, which means drop-down menus and click-to-call capabilities are significant.
- 88% of users want to see business hours displayed clearly.
- 85% of users want to see a phone number clearly (with a click-to-call option being a plus).
- 82% of users want to see an address and/or driving directions easily.
- 70% of users want to see product pricing.
- 67% of users want to see a product/service menu.
As you can see, mobile users aren’t looking for a flashy presentation. They just want to find your company’s basic information quickly and easily (i.e. without much navigation). This is because mobile users are performing local searches on the go more often than not. If mobile users don’t see the info they need right away or get annoyed because they have to zoom in to read text, they’re likely to navigate back to the search page and look for another site. So if your mobile site doesn’t meet the above criteria, you could be driving your customers straight to the competition. Check out the full article over on Search Engine Watch to see all of the study’s findings and corresponding charts.