Mobile woes hit retail search

Many retailers are harming their ability to appear in natural search results as most of their websites are not mobile friendly, are hard to use and are consequently limiting their traffic, according to a new study.
The research, by direct and digital agency Equimedia, shows – perhaps unsurprisingly – that mums are time-poor and want quick and easy access to products and services online.
They run their lives on their smartphones; 52% of all visits to retail websites came from mobile devices, surpassing desktop traffic for the first time. Yet, retailers fail to tap into this effectively.
Equimedia surveyed 65 leading mother, baby and child retailer websites and looked at specific attributes that can significantly affect their ability to rank in natural search results on all devices, and especially on smartphones. The common problems found were:

• – 26% of the leading retail sites homepages are not mobile device friendly, according to Google;
•  – 32% of sites served content wider than a smartphone screen size making usage difficult;
• – 91% had buttons that were judged to be too close together to use on a smartphone;
• – 26% served content that was too small to read on a smartphone;
• – 78% could do more to improve page load times with 32% needing to make significant improvements;
• – 40% had page titles that were too long, 29% had meta descriptions that were too long and 9% had no meta description at all.

Equimedia Group chief operating officer Louise Burgess said: “Google’s recent overhaul of its 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 the revenue they bring.
“In the industry sector we looked at, younger generations of expectant and new mums demand sites to be accessible and usable on all devices and will leave if a site doesn’t perform well.
“If brands are to keep pace with the expectations of their ever-changing audiences and maximise online revenues from the UK’s youngest mums as they become affluent over time, they will need to improve page load speeds, provide mobile compatible sites that are easier to read and navigate, and crucially, improve their sales funnels so that buying products using a smartphone is much easier.”
The whitepaper detailing the survey results and information on how to improve a retail site’s ability deliver to its target market’s expectations is available for download from the Equimedia website >