The title of this blog post is actually misleading. There are actually no steps involved in determining if you need a mobile website strategy for your roofing company - you do need one! The real question is, how much should a mobile website matter to you?At a minimum you should have mechanisms in place to serve up content targeted at the someone viewing your site from a mobile device (smart phone, iPad, etc.). But how do you know what to measure to determine just how pressing a need this is?
Step 1: Turn on "mobile traffic" in Google Analytics
Every installation of Google Analytics has a custom traffic segment called "mobile traffic". Log in to your Google Analytics account and turn on this segment in the upper right-hand corner.
Step 2: Identify your % of traffic that comes from mobile devices
Browse over to your visitors tab. What percentage of your traffic is mobile? If it is higher than 1% you need to start thinking about a mobile website strategy. If it is higher than 10% you need to kick your mobile website strategy into high gear. If it is higher than 25% and your mobile strategy isn’t in full swing you are losing business to people who don’t want to navigate on a mobile unfriendly website.
Step 3: Identify the % of mobile traffic for new vs. returning visitors
Two other data points worth noting is new and returning visitors. What percentage of each is mobile traffic? If your returning visitors are using mobile devices to browse your roofing company's website in any serious way, then you are annoying them by not offering up a mobile option. If your new visitors are coming from mobile devices, then you may be turning away business and you don’t even know it.
There is a very good chance that search traffic from a mobile device is coming from someone who needs a roofer ASAP. Make absolutely sure that your mobile content gives the information they need in a hurry - an easy way to report a leak or request an inspection, an easy way to contact the right person for a project or service work, how to get to your office (if appropriate), etc.
If you aren't getting any mobile traffic at all, that should raise two questions: why not, and what should you do about it? As more and more internet traffic migrates to mobile devices you should see an increase in mobile traffic over time to your website. If you see none, that means you have likely done zero optimization for mobile and local search. At a bare minimum, register your website with Google Places and consider at least starting a free account (plus profile data) on Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, Gowalla, and any other services that heavily promote mobile usage.
If you have any questions about optimizing your roofing company's website for mobile devices, please feel free to email Chris@RoofPal.com.
