A recent IBM report showed that web sales on Cyber Monday rose 21 percent from 2012. Retailers catering to smartphone and tablet users benefited the most, with mobile traffic accounting for 32 percent of site visits, a 45 percent gain from a year earlier.
eCommerce is projected to be the bright spot of an otherwise tepid holiday season: internet sales may climb as much as 15 percent, more than three times faster than overall retail growth, according to the National Retail Federation.
Should you care about consumer shopping behavior? Probably so, and here’s how you can see how important mobile traffic is to your site:
Mobile traffic is an important performance indicator you can verify in your site’s Google Analytics reports. Here’s how to get started:
1. Log in to your Google Analytics account
2. Select “Visitors”
3. Select “Mobile”
4. Select “Mobile Devices”
5. Read “Percentage of Site Total”
There’s more, but these steps will get you going. Even if you’re not selling anything on your site, you’ll likely find an important and growing segment of your audience comes to your site or views your eNews on a mobile device.
Why? Of all global Internet traffic, an estimated 20% and 33% comes from mobile, according to a report by digital agency Walker Sands and StatCounter. iPhone traffic is outpacing Android, and on tablets, users are more likely to make purchase on tablets than other devices.
OK, so isn’t there just an app for that? Maybe so, and it’s definitely worth considering. But in a comment in a recent Mashable article, Jon Gibs, VP of analytics at Huge said: “From a design perspective, a high degree of mobile or tablet traffic means you need to optimize your site for those platforms ASAP, if you haven’t already.”
In our recent post on making Responsive Design a reality, Jim Bankoff of Vox Media distilled the heartbeat of any approach down to four words: seamless experiences across devices. What does that look like in practice? Premier Guitar has reported a measurable uptick in traffic (would YOU like 35% more traffic from Google?) and many others are adopting the design principles or reviewing real-world examples of sites with responsive design.
As we prepare our list of resolutions for the New Year, this one may be close to the top.
