Home – New › Forums › Tech talk › Mobile versus PC’s. – website referrals?
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June 6, 2015 at 10:31 am #991936Up::0
Dear all,
we’ve got past the mobile update and the like, but my question is this.
Have business owners or SEO’s here in Australia got any real world (their own) comparisons as to what percentage of their website referrals are coming from mobile phones and the like, versus the desktops?
I ask this because some of our competitors only place Google ads on mobiles and not PC’s.
All the bestJune 6, 2015 at 1:14 pm #1184142Up::0Approximately 50% of traffic for a range of websites I manage are viewed from a mobile device.
June 7, 2015 at 1:11 am #1184143Up::0Hi Snakeman, interesting question. Like Craig I think everyone is noticing the rapid shift from desktop to mobile traffic, but I haven’t heard any specifics in terms of ‘referrals/leads’ from mobile v desktop. I assume that’s your question? It would be interesting to see if there is a difference – for example maybe lots of traffic comes from mobile devices but it could be that more people still purchase on desktop – or not!
Be interested to see if others have data on this.
Cheers
PeterJune 7, 2015 at 1:30 am #1184144Up::0I find less than 10% of purchases are made via a mobile device. It’s very difficult to correlate mobile users which come in on paid traffic but end up purchasing from a desktop unless they are using the same IP address across devices or they have a logged account you can track. The only assumption I could make, is that users are searching on mobile devices, but when they are ready to buy they will do so from a desktop device. This may because of mobile security concerns, lack of mobile support from the website or they are just more comfortable using a desktop when purchasing.
I’m not a marketing expert, but your best off running ads on both mobiles and desktops and evaluate the conversion rate of both. Keep tweaking your ads to improve their performance.
June 7, 2015 at 9:50 am #1184145Up::0Hi Snakeman,
Your question is incomplete and is therefor likely to lead you towards bad assumptions and actions.A couple of us shared some industry or business type mobile phone stats on this FS thread in March 15.
My mobile phone stats range was:
- 3 x offline retailers = 39% (ave.) mobile phone access
- 2 x alternative medicine clinics = 29% ave.
- Catering service = 17%
- B2B wholesaler = 11%
- Industrial manufacturer = 11%
- 2 x web designers = 8% ave
As you see, the numbers vary enormously. The other contributer reported a similar range.
You also need to assess a bunch of other important criteria before you can arrive at any action decisions. Eg.
a. The incidence of visits by:- Existing customers
- Repeat vs new sessions
b. Volume of page visits and time on site for mobile phone vs desktop/tablet
c. Landing page for mobile phone vs desktop/tablet
d. Pages visited for mobile phone vs desktop/tablet
e. Time of day, day of week for mobile phone vs desktop/tabletIf you are running ad campaigns you would want to look at a bunch of other metrics specific to this application.
According to the reports I read, G is having a lot of trouble delivering clicks-throughs for mobile ads vs desktop. I’m seeing reports of a very high level of accidental clicks on G mobile ads vs desktop searches. I am not saying don’t advertise on mobile, I’m saying measure and assess very carefully before you draw action plans.
Another factor to consider is what info does a mobile phone user search for vs a desktop user. They are frequently totally different and you need to target the different search needs of the different device users AND to measure these as very different outcomes.
Search info sought by the different device users is getting very little attention at present and it is mission critical.
There is certain info that is much more likely to be relevant to a mobile phone searcher than a desktop/tablet searcher. This should include:
- Phone numbers
- Addresses
- Directions
- Nearby products/services
- Price comparisons
Here is one recent clue from G on this. “Google Says “Near Me” Searches Have Doubled This Year“
It seems to me you will be largely left to your own local knowledge and marketing commonsense at present.
You are in the entertainment business. The questions I’d pose would include:
- When (how far in advance) do potential customers search for your type of entertainment?
- Do potential customers come to you or do you go to them?
- Do you participate in offline advertising/promotion?
- Do you want people to book/order online?
- What social media promotion do you implement and how should your website support it?
- What online advertising do you implement and how should your website support it?
- If someone is holding a party what info in PDF format do you need to provide for the customer to email/share with the participants? Etc.
This list is very far from complete but it may give some idea of the thought you need to give to how, when, where and why people search for your info. You then need to consider the alternative forms in which you need to deliver it AND what the info recipient then wants to do with it.
Internet marketing in the post mobile phone world has become more complex.
If people think that mobile phone use of the Internet is an alternative to desktop/mobile phone access, they have already lost the potential of the marketplace growth.
Regs,
JohnWJune 13, 2015 at 10:15 pm #1184146Up::0In my experience mobile drives more traffic. However, you will loose many potential customers if you focus only on mobile.
Still many office workers are using their office PCs for shopping. My suggestion is to advertise on both.June 16, 2015 at 5:40 am #1184147Up::0We have a WA based business that has been on top of search for a few years now. There has been a slight uptick over the past couple of weeks but I can’t tell for sure if this is because of the mobile update. As far as I can tell, the traffic from mobile has been more or less consistent for more than two years now – I would have expected it to have made a gradual rise, but nope.
June 19, 2015 at 3:23 am #1184148Up::0Thanks all for your replies, especially JohnW for the long and detailed one.
On a related matter, we’ve found adwords having a stronger impact now than a few years back.
I assume it is because of 1/ Google are better at disguising them and 2/ People are less averse to clicking on ads.
Have others found the same trend?June 19, 2015 at 9:13 am #1184149Up::0Snakeman, post: 215994, member: 14458 wrote:Thanks all for your replies, especially JohnW for the long and detailed one.
On a related matter, we’ve found adwords having a stronger impact now than a few years back.
I assume it is because of 1/ Google are better at disguising them and 2/ People are less averse to clicking on ads.
Have others found the same trend?
Hi Snakeman,
IMHO, this is a BIG assumption.Given that you are in the entertainment business, I’d be looking at the explosion in mobile phone searches for “entertainment” type info rather than the reasons you assume.
You may want to delve deeper into your Google Analytics results for confirmation.
Regs,
JohnWJune 19, 2015 at 1:25 pm #1184150Up::0Correct John, I should have mentioned the third point you raised as well.
People tell me this point blank when calling me to catch snakes (and they are standing in their yard with the phone and not taking their eye off of it).
All the bestJune 19, 2015 at 5:02 pm #1184151Up::0Snakeman, setup custom reporting within Google Analytics and split out referral traffic between devices. You should separate it as the following –
- Desktop
- Mobile
- Tablet
You can also filter by traffic type – organic, direct, paid, social etc
Remove any “assumptions” and know exactly what is going on. The data is trying to tell you!
You will want to know how well mobile is performing vs desktop. This should include, traffic, referrals and abandonment rates.
Infact you can set reporting to show –
- which keywords are performing on mobile
- what sort of mobile devices visitors are using
- what pages they’re landing on
- …and more
Here is how I have it setup within Google Analytics. This is very basic, you can do a LOT more with it.
June 20, 2015 at 12:42 am #1184152Up::0Nice thread! Thanks for all these detailed replies. It’s amazing how much you can learn on a Saturday morning
June 21, 2015 at 6:02 am #1184153Up::0Hi Snakeman,
I don’t think I knew you provided snake catching and removal services.How long does it take you to get to them? Do they stay on their phones all that time?
It makes sense that people are using mobile phones to search for snake removal services. I imagine they are using voice search rather than typing their queries. (Is your mobile site targeting voice search phrases?)
I know you are asking about Adwords on mobile phones but there should be relevance to your pages’ generic SE referrals and the pages’ success in a mobile Adword campaign.
You have much bigger SEO problems to worry about than just your page’s relevance to mobile ads.
I can see you have at least 11 domains registered and many, if not all are targeting all your services.
- snakehandlermelbourne.com.au
- snakehandlingcourses.com.au
- reptileparties.com.au
- reptilehandler.com.au
- reptileparty.net.au
- snakebusters.com.au
- snakebusters.net
- reptileinformation.com.au
- raymondhoser.com
- reptilepartiesmelbourne.com.au
- smuggled.com
If you are going to use multiple domains then at least use them to target different services in each one.
I only checked 6 of the 11 domains but only one of these had Analytics installed. This will be crippling your SEO/Adword evaluations and decision making.
I’m surprised Google has not already penalised your site as a link farm. I’d be very concerned that one of your competitors could report you for SE spam. You won’t be able to run any Adwords campaign if G delists your site(s).
Then there is the issue of near duplicate content where you attempt to target specific suburb/town containing search phrases.
Egs:- snakebusters.com.au/snake-catcher-handler-removals-ringwood-east.htm
- snakebusters.com.au/snake-catcher-handler-removals-yarra-valley.htm
- snakebusters.com.au/snake-catcher-handler-removals-bayswater.htm
- snakebusters.com.au/snake-catcher-handler-removals-alphington.htm
The situation is likely getting worse for you with almost every Google algorithm update. Google is about to implement a ranking penalty for this sort near duplicate content.
Here is what G is likely to have in store for you…
12 Jun 15: Local SEO Landing Pages 2.0
“Local businesses attempting to rank in multiple locations may find themselves running afoul of Google’s guidelines if they aren’t careful.”16 Mar 15: Google To Launch New Doorway Page Penalty Algorithm
“Google will take algorithmic action on more doorway pages in the near future.”“How do you know if your web pages are classified as a “doorway page?” Google said ask yourself these questions:”
“Do the pages duplicate useful aggregations of items (locations, products, etc.) that already exist on the site for the purpose of capturing more search traffic?”
I can go back to 2012 where the folk on FS provided advice to you on these same SEO problems.
Posted 2012: More headaches looming for SEO’s
It must be very frustrating for those who put time into responding to your requests for help when they are given such an incomplete picture of the magnitude of your online problems. You can’t expect to get accurate and relevant advice when people are presented with so much missing and mis-information.
Best regs,
JohnWJune 22, 2015 at 6:54 am #1184154Up::0Multiple people have given Snakeman advice, but he does seem interested in changing his ways.
I find his site impossible to navigate, so for UX as well as SEO a change is needed.
JohnW, post: 216075, member: 6375 wrote:Hi Snakeman,
I don’t think I knew you provided snake catching and removal services.How long does it take you to get to them? Do they stay on their phones all that time?
It makes sense that people are using mobile phones to search for snake removal services. I imagine they are using voice search rather than typing their queries. (Is your mobile site targeting voice search phrases?)
I know you are asking about Adwords on mobile phones but there should be relevance to your pages’ generic SE referrals and the pages’ success in a mobile Adword campaign.
You have much bigger SEO problems to worry about than just your page’s relevance to mobile ads.
I can see you have at least 11 domains registered and many, if not all are targeting all your services.
- snakehandlermelbourne.com.au
- snakehandlingcourses.com.au
- reptileparties.com.au
- reptilehandler.com.au
- reptileparty.net.au
- snakebusters.com.au
- snakebusters.net
- reptileinformation.com.au
- raymondhoser.com
- reptilepartiesmelbourne.com.au
- smuggled.com
If you are going to use multiple domains then at least use them to target different services in each one.
I only checked 6 of the 11 domains but only one of these had Analytics installed. This will be crippling your SEO/Adword evaluations and decision making.
I’m surprised Google has not already penalised your site as a link farm. I’d be very concerned that one of your competitors could report you for SE spam. You won’t be able to run any Adwords campaign if G delists your site(s).
Then there is the issue of near duplicate content where you attempt to target specific suburb/town containing search phrases.
Egs:- snakebusters.com.au/snake-catcher-handler-removals-ringwood-east.htm
- snakebusters.com.au/snake-catcher-handler-removals-yarra-valley.htm
- snakebusters.com.au/snake-catcher-handler-removals-bayswater.htm
- snakebusters.com.au/snake-catcher-handler-removals-alphington.htm
The situation is likely getting worse for you with almost every Google algorithm update. Google is about to implement a ranking penalty for this sort near duplicate content.
Here is what G is likely to have in store for you…
12 Jun 15: Local SEO Landing Pages 2.0
“Local businesses attempting to rank in multiple locations may find themselves running afoul of Google’s guidelines if they aren’t careful.”16 Mar 15: Google To Launch New Doorway Page Penalty Algorithm
“Google will take algorithmic action on more doorway pages in the near future.”“How do you know if your web pages are classified as a “doorway page?” Google said ask yourself these questions:”
“Do the pages duplicate useful aggregations of items (locations, products, etc.) that already exist on the site for the purpose of capturing more search traffic?”
I can go back to 2012 where the folk on FS provided advice to you on these same SEO problems.
Posted 2012: More headaches looming for SEO’s
It must be very frustrating for those who put time into responding to your requests for help when they are given such an incomplete picture of the magnitude of your online problems. You can’t expect to get accurate and relevant advice when people are presented with so much missing and mis-information.
Best regs,
JohnWJune 22, 2015 at 9:43 am #1184155Up::0Hi Matt,
I know you go back to the 2012 discussion above, also.I don’t mind contributing to Snakeman again as it may help other business owners understand that there is much that professional consultants can contribute to SEO, usability and conversion issues.
To Snakemann,
Can I suggest that you provide more background to your requests for help so that other contributors who do not know the complexity and background of all your domains aren’t sent off on an incorrect tangent.
Best regs,
JohnW -
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