I don’t have any real data on this, but I figure just about anyone who owns an iPhone or an Android or even a Blackberry has used the device to access a website or search engine. That’s a lot of people. Google sees enough mobile traffic to have invested heavily in making it easy for Adwords advertisers to reach this market.
But should you care?
For most readers of this blog I believe the answer is no. Not yet anyway. Traffic to technology and other business-to-business sites just doesn’t warrant it. In my experience – with my own search habits and those of my friends and associates – mobile searches tend to be more local and consumer-oriented. We look for restaurants, retailers, doctors, plumbers, and even the occasional Wikipedia definition. Rarely, if ever, do we use our mobile devices to find a new piece of business software.
Just to be sure, I took a look at a bunch of analytics reports – those of our own websites as well as our clients’ – to see what percentage of visitors accessed the site over the last month using a mobile device. With one exception (and it’s a weird anomaly) less than 4% of visitors used mobile devices – and most were under 2%.
Unless you’re the guy with the 21% mobile visitor traffic, it’s just not worth worrying about.
So are your visitors using mobile devices to reach you?
It’s easy enough to find out. If you’re using Google Analytics, just follow these three steps:
- From your analytics dashboard, click the “Visitors” link in the left-hand column.
- Click “Mobile” in the drop-down list.
- Click “Mobile Devices”.
Among other things, you’ll see the number of visits and the percentage of site total. Most likely you’ll find your marketing resources are better focused on something else.
If you find you have a significant amount of mobile traffic, I’d like to hear about it. Post a comment below.
But should you care?
For most readers of this blog I believe the answer is no. Not yet anyway. Traffic to technology and other business-to-business sites just doesn’t warrant it. In my experience – with my own search habits and those of my friends and associates – mobile searches tend to be more local and consumer-oriented. We look for restaurants, retailers, doctors, plumbers, and even the occasional Wikipedia definition. Rarely, if ever, do we use our mobile devices to find a new piece of business software.
Just to be sure, I took a look at a bunch of analytics reports – those of our own websites as well as our clients’ – to see what percentage of visitors accessed the site over the last month using a mobile device. With one exception (and it’s a weird anomaly) less than 4% of visitors used mobile devices – and most were under 2%.
Unless you’re the guy with the 21% mobile visitor traffic, it’s just not worth worrying about.
So are your visitors using mobile devices to reach you?
It’s easy enough to find out. If you’re using Google Analytics, just follow these three steps:
1. From your analytics dashboard, click the “Visitors” link in the left-hand column.
2. Click “Mobile” in the drop-down list.
3. Click “Mobile Devices”.
Among other things, you’ll see the number of visits and the percentage of site total. Most likely you’ll find your marketing resources are better focused on something else.
If you find you have a significant amount of mobile traffic, I’d like to hear about it. Post a comment below.
Thu, Mar 4, 2010
Traffic
Written by: Susan Tatum