Nomophobia or being addicted to a cell phone is officially a thing in our society today. Walking around our office here in Durham, NC it’s pretty evident that our society is glued to our phones and this has far reaching business implications especially in the areas of SEO and Responsive Web Design. I think we all know someone in our lives, most likely you who could be considered on this spectrum of phone addiction. The question is, how much web traffic actually comes from mobile devices?

How Can We Determine  What Percentage Of Web Traffic Comes From Mobile?

The short answer is analyzing data. The long answer is hours and hours of meticulous comparisons and collaborations between good SEO researchers and their analytical data. Periodically we hear updates directly from Google about where the mobile trends are moving to but the bulk of these estimations comes from people like myself and my colleagues around the world. Web analytics is a massive industry today and one that has identified most of the internet trends why perceive as fact like conversion rates, keyword rankings and heat mapping.

How Much Web Traffic Actually Comes From Mobile Devices

To define the question, we are looking to determine what percentage of web traffic comes from users on mobile devices like phones and tablets. This does not include traditional sources for web browsing like desktops and laptops. While many may be surprised at the percentage most rational people can guess that mobile devices have been (not so) slowly taking over the internet. With over 8 billion mobile devices in the world it’s not a surprise that today…. over 60 percentof all web traffic comes from mobile devices.

Why Is The Majority Of Web Traffic From Mobile Important?

Google is changing, and it has been moving down a path to full mobile optimization for quite some time. Recently, Google announced that it will be moving forward with a “mobile first” search algorithm. This is BIG BIG BIG news as Google is telling us that now ALL websites must be mobile ready with technology like responsive design in order to get the most out of SEO. It is going to start rewarding websites that value mobile ranking factors like, page load speed (which we’re pretty good at) and mobile optimization of a user experience. You can learn more about mobile first search algorithm here.

What Should You Do With This Information?

If you are a local business owner who cares about Local SEO, no longer can you ignore the growing user base that is mobile devices. There is a TON of research out there that shows business who value and enact a mobile strategy do much better than their competition on a local level. If you have a website that is more than 3+ years old do some research on what the makeup of your website is.

• Have you run a page speed test? Anything under 80 needs to be improved.
• Is your website mobile friendly?
• Do you have a local address easily visible?
• Do you have mobile friendly page URLs?
• Have you optimized your image sizes?

If you answered no to 1 or more of this questions odds are your website is lagging behind when it comes to mobile optimization. Mobile optimization does not just meaning having a plugin that turns your website responsive. It’s about a full stack of improvements that show Google you’re serious about mobile traffic and want to provide the best web experience to your mobile visitors. If you need help getting your website mobile optimized, Oak City Technology can help!

Choose Oak City Tech, Your Local Web Design & SEO Company

We're local to the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area known as RTP, we take in person meetings, and we love to help local businesses and organizations succeed online. Contact us today and let us know how we can help you. We're serving actual local businesses and organizations and they're talking about us online.