Google’s recent overhaul of their mobile algorithm has shaken up mobile search results and made it crucially important that retailers ensure their sites are mobile friendly if they want to get their fair share of relevant mobile site visitors and purchases.

Younger generations of expectant and new mums are online more than their predecessors. Not only do they rely heavily on online support and advice, 48% of Millennial Mums (mums aged 18-32) do half or more of all their shopping online. 52% of all visits to retail websites came from mobile devices, surpassing desktop traffic for the first time (BabyCenter 2015).

Online retailers can no longer ignore the need to make mobile browsing and purchasing easy. Today’s time poor mothers running their lives on smartphones constitute a growing market that online retailers need to capture effectively.

Our survey of 65 leading mother, baby and child retail sites are failing to do this. The results show that many are harming their ability to appear in natural search results by serving sites on mobile devices that are not mobile friendly and are hard to read and use. Consequently their site traffic is being limited unnecessarily.

Mobile friendliness

The Google Mobile Friendly Test Tool measures overall mobile compatibility and other usability factors to determine a site’s mobile friendliness. Our survey revealed that 73% of the mother, baby and child retail homepages passed this mobile friendly test, yet 26% failed.

However, the survey results were quite different for each of the tool’s mobile friendliness factors. Of the 65 homepages surveyed:

  • 32% served content wider than the screen size
  • 26% did not have the mobile viewport set, affecting vertical vs. horizontal viewing
  • 92% had links that were judged to be too close together
  • 26% served content that was too small to read

Mobile websites and apps need to make sure the user can read core information. As well as move through the site or sales funnel effectively, being able to easily completing actions and purchases.

Site speed

Page load speed is another crucial factor for all retailers. Quick load times help revenue and customer engagement: mobile conversion rates increase by 74% when mobile site page load time improves from eight to two seconds (Gomez.com).

Site speed is also an important factor in Google’s desktop and mobile algorithms so a site that loads more slowly than a competitor’s is likely to achieve a lower ranking in search results. When we consider that a Google score of 85 or above indicates pages are loading quickly, scores of less than 85 mean sites could do more to improve the load times.

Our research found that 78% of sites scored 80 or less and could do more to improve load times. Almost a third (32%) scored 50 or less, indicating significant improvements are necessary. Retailers should do all they can to reduce content on pages and use technical attributes to maximise load times.

Page titles and Meta data

If a site is to rank highly in search results on any device, two of the key site attributes to get right are the page title and Meta description. Arguably the most important on-page attribute for search engines is the page title and it is definitely crucial for encouraging users to click through to your site.

Of the homepages we audited 40% had page titles that were too long, 29% had overly verbose Meta descriptions and 9% had no Meta description at all! Getting these basics right can only help retailers’ ability to rank well for the most relevant searches.

Content and engagement

The quality of a site’s content, social media advocacy and relevancy should not be underestimated either. Retailers must create content that is valuable to the audience and written specifically for them and not search engines. Such content will either inform or entertain to earn social shares and thus spread the word about your brand.

As social media usage booms amongst Millennial Mums and the number of platforms proliferates, the creation and shareability of good content that can be shared will help future proof SEO strategies; allowing brands to deliver what the new generations of mums need and expect.

In the face of the overwhelming increase in smartphone and tablet ownership, mobile friendly sites are crucial for capturing the interest and driving purchases made by Millennial Mums using mobile devices. What’s more, their changing habits indicate that the demand for informative content and mobile friendly sites will only increase.

Sites must be accessible and usable through all devices, otherwise they will not hesitate to leave a site if it does not perform well. Brands must improve the search performance of their sites through all devices if they are to keep pace with the expectations of their ever-changing audiences and maximise online revenues from the UK’s youngest mums now and in the future.

 

By Louise Burgess, COO of the equimedia Group. 

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