It's not enough to have a website for your construction business. In today's smart-phone saturated society, you need a website that looks amazing across every size screen.
Pull out your phone and open up your website.
- Is the font too small to read?
- Are the links too close together?
- Do you have any flash videos that don't work on your phone?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, your contractor website probably isn't well-optimized for mobile. And that could be devastating to your bottom line.
The Mobile Era is Here
A mobile-friendly website isn't just "highly recommended"... it's crucial
Don't believe us?
The numbers speak for themselves:
Approximately 2.5 billion people around the world use smartphones. In the US, 77% of adults own a smartphone.
But when you consider how many of those people are regularly online, that number gets even more impressive: 80% of internet users own a smartphone.
But how does this rise in mobile use impact how you market your contractor business?
Statistics show that smartphones are an important part of the buyer's journey for consumers everywhere.
Consider this...
- 91% of smartphone users turn to their phones for ideas when completing tasks.
- 82% of users consult their phones while choosing products or services.
If your business is location-based, like a remodel or plumbing contractor, it's even more important that you have a mobile site. Certain searches are more likely to happen on mobile devices than others. For example, 88% of all "near me" searches come from mobile devices.
And, get this... the number of people performing "near me" searches have doubled in the past year.
The majority of consumers are turning to their phones when they have a question about coverage or need to choose a professional contractor. If your website isn't optimized for mobile, you won’t get business from those clients. If they can't easily read and navigate your site on their smartphones, they'll back out of your website quicker than you can say "leaky sink."
Or, worse yet, they may not ever find you in the search engine results at all.
Search Engines Have Prioritized Mobile Websites
The boom in mobile users has caused a stir in the search engine world. Recent updates from major search engines have impacted how sites appear in mobile search results.
Google: The Leader of the Pack
Should you care about Google? You betcha. According to a recent survey, 78% of mobile searches are conducted using Google. (Bing and Yahoo are Google's closest competitors at 3% and 5%.) This means that ranking well in Google's results is crucial.
Google has been building its focus on mobile devices for years.
- In 2013, the search engine published recommendations for building mobile-friendly sites.
- In 2014, Google began tagging search results as either mobile-friendly or not.
- In 2015, Google announced that being mobile-friendly would impact site's ranking in mobile search results - a change so impactful it was dubbed "mobilegeddon".
- In 2017, Google began testing its mobile-first index, which looks primarily at the mobile version of your website for ranking factors, not the desktop version.
- In 2018, Google officially rolled out its mobile-first index.
Having a mobile-friendly contractor website is crucial for ranking on Google. But that's not all, because the other search engines are charting the same course.
It's important to make sure your site shows up in their results. After all, if you're not appearing in a search for "decking contractors", potential customers aren't going to find you. Plain and simple.
Tips For Mobile-Friendly Contractor Websites
Your contractor website has to be optimized for mobile in order for your business to survive the boom in smartphone and tablet use.
The following tips will help you make your site mobile-friendly:
- Use Google's PageSpeed tools. This will tell you what aspects of your site won't show up well on a mobile device (such as flash videos or small fonts) so that you know what you need to tweak.
- Make sure part of your SEO strategy is tailored specifically to mobile users. Because a hefty chunk of your site's traffic is likely to come from mobile searches, it's important to make sure you understand how search engines rank your site in mobile search results.
- Choose a responsive site design. Responsive site design is Google's recommended website layout for mobile sites. This type of design allows your website to adjust to fit a variety of screen sizes without creating the need to use new URLS or HTML for different devices.
- Use your analytics software to track what devices your consumers are using. This will allow you to understand what pages and content your customers are accessing from which devices. This insight will allow you to tailor your site for the buyer's journey of mobile consumers. For example, if your business has a physical location, you'll probably discover that more mobile users find your site through searches like "roofing contractors near me". In this example, you could then make sure your business was listed with directories such as Google Maps and Yelp, and that your site had a page with directions to your location.
A responsive website optimized to provide a mobile-friendly experience is a crucial tool as you build and grow your contractor business. Don't let an out-of-date website cost you traffic, leads, and new clients. Get your site updated and get to (mobile) business.