Consumers are starting and finishing their holiday purchases on smartphones this year - is your website and SEO strategy optimized for mobile.

When you’re planning your SEO strategies for the end of the year, you need to think mobile. A Google Shopping blog post reported that 75 percent of smartphone shoppers plan to use their phones for holiday research and purchases this year.

Is your site optimized for mobile search and transactions? For most companies, the answer is “no.” Even though 58 percent of all American adults have a smartphone, most businesses assume it’s enough to have a search strategy for desktop devices.

However, people approach mobile searches much differently than they do when they’re looking for information on a desktop computer or laptop:

  1. They’re looking for instant answers to their questions
  2. They’re unlikely to go past the first page of results
  3. They are skimming, not reading long posts
  4. They want to take action immediately

Working on smaller screens – and often on the go – consumers generally have a difficult time navigating. If they land on your site and have to click small buttons to get to the information they need or checkout, they’ll likely bounce away and go to a site that’s easier to use.

When three-quarters of people are searching for end-of-year purchases online, that can cost a lot of sales opportunities. It’s smart to look at traffic sources and see where your visitors are navigating from. If you get a lot of traffic from smartphones and tablets, it’s a good idea to look at your pages through the eyes of a mobile user and ask: Is it easy to navigate? Do you get the information you need to make a purchase? Is the content easy to read – and can it be skimmed for answers?

Starting to think about mobile optimization for your content strategy? Here’s some advice from our strategist Sonny Sharp.​

Lauren Kaye is a Marketing Editor at Brafton Inc. She studied creative and technical writing at Virginia Tech before pursuing the digital frontier and finding content marketing was the best place to put her passions to work. Lauren also writes creative short fiction, hikes in New England and appreciates a good book recommendation.