Discover if Your Website is Performing Well on Mobile
Are you serving your customers an excellent mobile-first experience? In 2015 Google reported that mobile search queries had exceeded desktop for the first time. This trend has continued with nearly three billion mobile users and the creation of the Google mobile-first index.
The indexing process, where your website is added to the Google library, now works on a mobile first basis, considering not only the content but the experience that a web page will give to a mobile user. Therefore, knowing how your website is performing on mobile is crucial.
Asking questions such as ‘how many sales come from our website?’ is a good start but doesn’t tell you the whole story. Do you know how many visitors you have had in previous months, or how many times an individual visits your site before completing the sales process? These answers will provide you with the context you need to make an informed assessment.
The Google Analytics Package
This powerful tool is used by companies around the world to measure the health of their websites, including performance and engagement. To get an accurate measure you need to know where to find the information and how to process it.
Creating a Mobile Filter
To make sure the data you are viewing is for mobile you will need to create a mobile filter on the report. While on a reporting page:
- Click on the “Add Segment”
- Click the red “+ New Segment”
- In the left side menu choose the Technology tab
- Under Device Category choose Exactly Matches from the drop-down menu and type in to the box Mobile
Finding Answers
- Site Speed – Navigating to Behaviour > Site Speed > Page Timings and create a Mobile Filter. It is important to know which are your key landing pages and what their Page Load Time is.
- Customer Engagement – Found in Audience > Mobile > Overview. Check the tick-box on the mobile row and then use the Plot Rows button above.
- Conversion Rate – Critical in evaluating the health of your website and can be found in Behaviour > Site Content > Landing Pages > Overview
What Questions to Ask
Now that you know where to find the information needed to measure your website’s health then you can start the reporting process. You will want to know the following:
- Average load time for your landing pages
- Bounce rate
- The average session duration and pages per sessions.
- Conversion Rate
With this information, you can tell the story of a user and how they interact with your website.
- Is the average load time over three seconds? You will start to see a higher bounce rate and a lower session duration as users become frustrated.
- How does the average session duration compare from mobile to desktop when combined with pages per sessions? You may see mobile users with higher pages per session and lower average session duration. Consider the content you serve to them and highlight any issues this may have.
- Why is the conversion rate so low but the pages per session so high? A struggling conversion rate could be due to several issues such as a failing navigation system or a complicated purchase process.
Asking questions like these will help you understand your customers and your website and highlighting key areas that may need to be changed.
Need expert help?
During this process you may have uncovered results that are concerning. At iCandy Design we have a team of highly experienced SEO experts and web designers. We have experience optimising websites for mobile and ensuring an excellent mobile-first experience. Get in touch with our skilled team to make sure your website is where it should be.
