An analysis of its Valentine’s Day traffic showed that 62 percent of Google searches for restaurants came from smartphones, the company reported on its Mobile Ads Blog. The queries dealt mostly with chain restaurants in cities around the country.
Mobile search traffic for these restaurants’ websites increased 359 percent from February 7. Desktop and tablet traffic rose as well, surging 142 percent and 135 percent respectively. Integrating a mobile strategy into SEO campaigns or building mobile-friendly sites can help businesses leverage the growth of smartphone and tablet queries, especially for companies in industries with heavy on-the-go traffic.
Similarly, the click-to-call feature on mobile SERPs was used far more frequently on Valentine’s Day for queries related to flowers, Google reported. Compared Tuesday, February 7, Google found that the use of the feature increased 227 percent.
Singles were especially active on mobile search as well, with the queries “match.com” and “eharmony” spiking around Valentine’s Day. This was especially true of tablet users, according to Google. While these figures were not drastically different from earlier searches for singles sites, they marked increases compared to the previous week.
Holidays and major events seem to be prime times for busy Americans to conduct queries on the go. Mobile search figures jumped during the Super Bowl as well, with 41 percent of queries for commercials airing during the game coming from smartphones. Brafton reported that mobile search queries were 2,700 percent greater than during normal Sunday evenings.
