With 63% of Google searches being performed on a mobile device, ensuring your finance brand’s website is optimised to be mobile-friendly isn’t a maybe, it’s a must. When a website isn’t designed for mobile, Google’s algorithm places it lower in the search engine results, even if it’s highly ranked on desktops. According to SEMrush, 71.76% of domains change rankings by one place on mobile compared to desktop, indicating that it pays for finance brands to strengthen their mobile website design.
Mobile-friendly web design is the future
Optimising your finance website so it’s mobile-friendly is a competitive decision that can ensure you remain discoverable over your opposition. Currently, only around 13% of websites retain their search engine ranking across all devices, showcasing a prime opportunity for your finance brand to increase organic traffic.
Nowadays, almost everything is performed on mobile phones, so even if you’re ranked high on desktop searches this may not be benefiting your finance business as much as you’d think. With Google implementing mobile-first indexing back in 2017, it’s time finance brands altered their web design to reflect these algorithm changes. Shockingly, 30% of businesses that appear in the first page of Google search results on desktop don’t appear in the top ten search results on mobile.
“ Currently, only around 13% of websites retain their search engine ranking across all devices. ”
Quick! Check your website design now
If you’re unsure if your website design is mobile-friendly or not, Google provides a mobile-friendly test that’s a simple and easy way to double-check. It also provides a detailed analysis of key areas of your overall website that could be improved, such as if your:
- Text is too small to read on the screen
- Clickable elements are too close together
- Plug-ins are incompatible
Another way to check the health of your website’s mobile design and how it’s performing on mobile search engine rankings is Google Search Console.
Other than the technical side of things, a simple check on your own mobile should reveal just how easy your website is to use. If it’s difficult for you to use, then it’s most likely being penalised by Google for its poor user experience.
Unlock search engine traffic with responsive web design
With Google’s reindexing of mobile search results to favour websites designed for mobiles, if your finance brand doesn’t keep up it can negatively impact your visibility and organic traffic. For a website to be favoured by Google it must have a responsive web design. With 94% of consumers judging websites on responsive web design, not updating your website would be doing your brand a disservice.
Here are some quick tips regarding the core aspects of best practice mobile-friendly design.
- Your website must respond well to the different devices it appears on. Your web design should adjust to the size of the screen it appears on to ensure it’s easy to use by everyone.
The transition from a desktop website to a mobile website should be seamless. - Create visuals that say something. Less is more when it comes to mobile-friendly design.
- Ensure your mobile site is not separate from your desktop site. With Google’s mobile-first indexing they now favour mobile websites over desktop ones. If these are different it could be hurting your discoverability.
Strengthen your SEO with mobile-friendly web design
To ensure your SEO is working well, get comfortable with using structured data. This is simply a method of explaining exactly what your website is to search engines and when used in collaboration with a responsive user experience can greatly improve your mobile rankings.
If you’re not sure you’ve implemented structured data correctly then you can always double-check by using Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.
Faster, faster, faster
The final aspect of a mobile-friendly website is its speed. A slow site ranks poorly on Google and will lead 50% of people to click off if page load time is longer than three seconds.
- To ensure your mobile website stays as quick as Usain Bolt take a look at your browser caching and image optimisation.
Browser caching is information that your customer’s computer saves, like your site’s HTML or images. By saving this data, the next time they click on your website it will load faster. Talk to your developer to ensure that your browser caching is working as efficiently as possible. - Optimising your images to ensure fast load times could take the form of compressing the file sizes, utilising fewer images, or ensuring the dimensions of the images are correct. It’s all about making sure your visitor’s computer has to do less work.
To check how fast your website really is, then take a look at Google’s Site Speed Tool.
It’s time to optimise
A mobile-friendly website has a direct effect on customers’ perceptions of your finance brand, with websites optimised for mobile improving 60% of users’ opinions and ensuring that 74% of users return to your site. With 52.16% of businesses’ rankings altering on mobile devices by three places, and 29.16% changing by 10 places, your finance brand could be losing out on potential customers every day.
While it may seem like a nice option rather than a non-negotiable, with 67% of users more likely to buy from a mobile-friendly website, it pays for finance businesses to create a responsive user experience.
