70% of mobile search lead to action on a website within one hour” iAquire Research Study
Why Your Firm Needs a Mobile Site
It sounds incredible but for many consumers, the smartphone has become their primary computer.
On average 50% of people will view your site on a tablet or mobile device, not on a desktop computer but most websites are still only designed to be displayed on a desktop device.
For businesses that have optimized their websites for mobile visitors this information presents a great opportunity. Why? Because you now stand to gain a significant competitive advantage by having a great mobile site for your law firm. Not only will you be making it easier on site visitors to learn about your brand, specialities and what makes you unique in a clear, simple way but a majority of mobile searches result in immediate action. This important statistic comes from iAcquire which found that 70% of mobile search lead to action on a website within one hour of when the search was conducted.
This means that if you have a website that’s optimized for search so people are finding your law firm’s website when searching for something like “Estate Attorney Rhode Island” — or whatever your location and specialties are — and these potential clients find you have an easy-to-understand mobile site, they are highly likely to contact your firm about representation.
Additional stats highlighting the importance of having your firm’s site optimized for mobile:
“More than half of consumer time spent on the Internet is on mobile devices”
(Mobile Media Consumption report, ad network InMobi)
“Mobile traffic will grow significantly in the next five years with no end in sight”
(According to the Ericsson Mobility report, growth in mobile data traffic between 2013 and 2019 will grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 45%. With these calculations in mind, it’s estimated there will be 10 times the amount of total mobile data traffic by 2019.)
People are starting to expect to not have to pinch and zoom in to read a website. If your law firm doesn’t have a mobile site you’re likely losing new, high quality business as a result.
Google even goes so far as to include the words “Mobile-friendly” in mobile search results if they can detect that your site has been optimized for mobile devices.
Do I Already Have a Mobile Site?
Mobile sites are simplified sites designed specifically for the small screen size on a mobile and tablet device. If you don’t know whether your firm has a mobile site, test it by visiting your site on your phone or test your site using this website’s simulator.
Good mobile sites for law firms load quickly and allow site visitors to clearly identify your brand, your law firm’s specialties and figure out how to contact you.
A properly formatted mobile site allows people to call you with one button push — there’s no need to even dial in your number.
The first thing you can do is note that not all mobile sites are created equally. Some web design shops advertise “responsive design” but don’t properly test the sites they build on all devices and errors caused by a poor implementation of a mobile site will also lead to lost new business. You can ask your web designer whether you site has been test on all mobile devices. Sites like browsershots.org make it easy to render your site in multiple devices, for testing, at once.
Takeaways
Law Firms without well-designed mobile sites are likely loosing business to local competitors that do have them. Web browsers searching for professionals on their phone are significantly more primed for action and the easier you make it to find you and contact you from your mobile site without much thought, the better.