By Hannah Durham
We caught up with Raja Saggi, Head of B2B Marketing, UK & Ireland at Google, ahead of his talk at the Digital Marketing Show Mid Term to discuss what Google's upcoming mobile-friendly algorithm update will mean for businesses and how you should be investing in mobile in the next 12 months.
1. With the news that Google will be favouring mobile-friendly sites following an algorithm update in April, what should businesses be doing to prepare?
One of the best things about being in the UK is that it is a bell-weather when it comes to the internet. For example, smartphone ownership went mainstream in 2014, with over 80% of adults owning a device. This has fed through into ecommerce and search behavior - a third of all ecommerce activity took place on mobile devices, and there are predictions that search traffic on mobiles will exceed desktop for the first time this year. And with 40% of consumers turning to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience, it is increasingly important to have a mobile optimised site.
With this in mind, Google announced that we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness to rank search results. The goal is for users to find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimised for their devices.
For the business owner trying to make sense of all of this, I recommend:
Test your site pages to see if they are mobile friendly (if you use Google Webmaster Tools, you can also get a mobile site usability report)
Check out our white paper on mobile site design (you don’t have to be a web developer to understand it!)
Get help from agencies: We have a UK roster of agency partners that can help.
Bonus: Here are some tips on how to work with your mobile web developer.
2. How important do you think location-based marketing via mobile will be in 2015?
Location based marketing will continue to grow in importance, as more people use smartphones for more of their internet browsing, location based marketing platforms become more sophisticated, and businesses are ever more willing to experiment with new applications and ad formats.
Location based marketing is a catchall term, that includes:
Location Based Advertising: It has been possible since 2010 to show search and display ads to mobile phone users within a geographical region. For example, restaurants can make available special offers on internet advertising to mobile phone users within a 25 mile radius. These ads are popular - a recent study showed that 6 out of 10 smartphone users want ads to be customised to their location.
Filtering and Relevance: Many retailers make it easy for shoppers to pick up their purchases at nearby stores, and show which items are currently available in store. Companies like YPlan and Uber rely on location to provide information on nearby shows and estimate fares.
Push Notifications: An evolving field, that uses devices called beacons that are deployed in a particular area, to communicate with smartphones. For example, smartphone users that are logged into a retailer’s mobile app and have opted in, can receive special offers when they are near a beacon.
It is important to note that privacy is key consideration for these use cases, and mobile
phone users need to specifically opt in to benefit from these services.
3. What are the key pillars/integral features that businesses should be addressing within their mobile strategy?
Be There: Be there on all screens, desktop, tablet and mobile. The customers you are looking for are using many devices but they are the same person, so make it easy for them to switch screens. Ensure that your marketing encompasses these differing formats.
Be Relevant: Be relevant by allowing your customers to interact with you in ways that make sense for their context or setting.
Be Optimised: Ensure that you are able to measure the different ways in which consumers are interacting with your business, account for the value this creates, and optimise your marketing accordingly.
4. Finally, where should businesses be investing their time and money in ‘mobile’ in the next 12 months?
Following on from the key pillars stated in the previous question...
Be there: Invest in a responsive site, to ensure that your customers find your site useful and engaging, whether they visit on mobile, tablet or desktop. Create a familiar experience across the mobile and desktop site using good site design, so that your customers can start the process of research on one device and complete it seamlessly on another.
Consider investing specifically in mobile advertising, alongside your existing internet marketing, to drive new visitors who are at different stages of awareness and researching your products and company.
If your site needs to be used daily, weekly or offline, consider investing in a mobile app, and ensure that you have thought through how you can promote it.
Be relevant: Be flexible to your customers needs and context. If you are a B2B business such as an consultancy, ensure that your customers can browse information on your partners and use click to call on mobile to get in touch. If you are an ecommerce retailer with physical stores, allow your customers to browse products and check inventory on mobile, complete the purchase on desktop and use a store locator to pick up their purchase on the way home from work.
If you are already using mobile search, consider using mobile sitelinks to allow click to call, store search or app downloads directly from search ads.
Consider remarketing to users that have left your website without converting - it is one of the most effective forms of display advertising. Opt your remarketing desktop campaigns to mobile, to further increase conversion.
Be Optimised: Ensure that you are tracking mobile originated interactions such as calls from your mobile site, store visits, conversions on desktop that originated from mobile research and app downloads as applicable. Google Analytics is a free tool that can help you.
Assign a value to each of the interactions (using the Full Value of Mobile calculator) that lead to new business, not just the phone call or the final purchase, so that you can measure and optimise them accordingly.
Do you want to learn more about how you can achieve mobile success in 2015? Join Google's Raja Saggi at the Digital Marketing Show Mid Term on the 13th May 2015. Book your place now!
How often will you get the opportunity to be in the same room as Google, Three and Shutterstock?
Join us at the Digital Marketing Show Mid Term on the 13th May 2015 for a one-day pop-up conference, designed specifically for marketing professionals wanting to make sense of the ever-changing digital landscape.
