Tag Archives: mobile sites

Fast mobile sites get more customers. Let’s help get yours up to speed.


How long does it take for your mobile site to load? Five seconds? Ten seconds? These few seconds could be the difference between keeping visitors on your site or losing them – because people aren’t willing to wait. In fact, most sites lose half their visitors while loading.1 And 46% of people say that the most frustrating thing about browsing on their phone is waiting for slow pages to load.2


With a little help, we believe every business can have a fast mobile site. That’s why we’re launching a new set of features to test your site’s speed on Test My Site, which will show you:

  • Your site’s mobile speed: 50% of people expect a site to load in less than two seconds.3 Find out how fast your site loads.
  • The number of visitors you may be losing: When it comes to mobile speed, every second matters – for each additional second it takes a mobile page to load, conversions can drop by up to 20%.4 Learn how many people may be leaving your site during the time it takes to load.
  • How you compare to the competition: See how your business stacks up against others in your industry.
  • How to make your site faster: We’ll email you a personalized assessment with specific recommendations on how to speed up your site.




Taking a few steps to improve your site speed can make a big difference. Yard Dog Fence Company, a Nashville fencing company that specializes in pet-friendly and child-safe fences, took the recommendations from Test My Site to significantly improve their mobile speed. They reduced the file sizes of the images on their site and now their mobile site loads in 5 seconds compared to 26 seconds. For Michael Casper, the owner of Yard Dog, it’s made a real difference: “90% of our business comes from our mobile site. Since we improved our mobile speed, we doubled our sales.”


Making changes like these can help you see a real impact on your business, too – get started now with Test My Site.





Posted by Yong Su Kim, VP Americas, Google Marketing Solutions



2. Google Webmaster Central Blog, #MobileMadness: a campaign to help you go mobile-friendly, 2015.
3. DoubleClick by Google, The need for mobile speed, 2016.

Introducing the Mobile Sites certification, for web developers

Posted by Chris Hohorst, Head of Mobile Sites Transformation

Mobile now accounts for over half of all web traffic1, making performance on small screens more important than ever.

Despite this increase, a recent study by Google found that the average time it takes to load a mobile landing page is 22 seconds. When you consider that 53% of mobile site visitors will leave a site if it takes more than three seconds to load, it's clear why conversion rates are consistently lower on mobile than desktop.

Website visitors now expect their mobile experience to be as flawless as desktop, and the majority of online businesses are failing to deliver.

With this in mind, we're introducing the new Google Mobile Sites certification. Passing the Mobile Sites exam signals that you have a demonstrated ability to build and optimize high-quality sites, and allows you to promote yourself as a Google accredited mobile site developer.

Through codifying best practice in mobile site development, we hope to improve the general standard of mobile design and speed, and make it easier to find the best talent.
What the exam covers
To pass the exam, you'll need to show proficiency across mobile site design, mobile UX best practice, mobile site speed optimization, and advanced web technologies. We've put together a study guide that covers everything you'll need to know.
What are the benefits?
We know that a lot of web developers are doing great work on mobile sites - this certification is a way of promoting them to a wider audience. Being certified means being recognized by Google as an expert in mobile site optimization, which will make you more accessible and attractive to potential clients looking for a good match for those services.

The certification will display on your Partners profile, helping you stand out to businesses looking for mobile site development, and can also be shared across social media.

How to sign up

Check out our study guide to get started. Then, to take the exam, please click on the Mobile Sites certification link and log in to your Google Partners account. If you're not signed up yet, you can create a Partners user profile by registering here.
The exam is open to all web developers globally in English and, once completed, the certification will remain valid for 12 months.

1 Google Analytics data, U.S., Q1 2016 from Find Out How You Stack Up to Industry Benchmarks for Mobile Page Speed

Updating Your Holiday Hours on Google? Easy as Pumpkin Pie.

Heather Mohorn, owner of Momo’s Tree House, adds special hours on Google to let last-minute shoppers know when her business is open. “The holiday hours feature makes it easy to communicate [changes in hours] to customers,” she says. “It reduces the number of phone calls we receive to ask whether we’re open, which is nice when we’re busy wrapping those last-minute gifts on Christmas Eve.”

With Google My Business, you can update your business info on Google for free to ensure that your phone number, address, and hours of operation are correct so customers can find you this season (and beyond).

To help you make the most of the season, we put together a holiday workshop filled with tips for using the web to connect with shoppers. Preview the section on updating your holiday hours above, or watch the entire workshop at gybo.com/livestream.

For a list of step-by-step instructions on how to update your hours on Google My Business, visit our help center

We hope this is one thing you can easily check off your holiday to-do list.

Cheers,
Emily Harris, on behalf of the Let’s Put Our Cities on the Map team

Help Holiday Shoppers Find Your Business

Since 1992, Werkheiser Jewelers has been helping customers find the perfect holiday gift–from picking out an engagement ring to restoring cherished family heirlooms. While they’ve kept their love for tradition alive, the way they do business has changed with the times.

Today, 78% of shoppers online use the Internet for holiday research.1 That includes jewelry shoppers searching for a gift for that special someone. Alyssa Rizzo-Berg, Media Marketing Manager at Werkheiser Jewelers, explains, “Maybe they’re looking to buy that first big piece of jewelry or an engagement ring. Because of Google, they’re able to find us.”

We all rely on small businesses to help make our holidays special, and we rely on the Internet to help us find the right local spots. Is your business ready to connect during this busy time of year?
In the next few weeks, Google and our partners are bringing hundreds of local workshops to a city near you to help your business get ready for the holidays. On October 26th, we’re also hosting a live workshop online with the U.S. Small Business Administration. Join us to learn how to create a free business listing on Google, optimize your website for mobile, and advertise online.


- OR -



We hope to see you there. And from our team to yours, happy holidays!

Posted by Emily Harris, Program Manager, Let's Put Our Cities on the Map

1. Ipsos MediaCT, Google Post Holiday Shopping Intentions Study, January 2015, n=1,500.

Test your site with Google and see how it works across devices

Did you know that nine out of ten people will leave a mobile website if they can’t find what they’re looking for right away?1 Now, think about your business’s site. Does it perform quickly on both laptops and smartphones? If not, you’re probably losing customers while the pages slowly load. But if you’re not sure how to make it run more smoothly, don’t worry – we’re here to help.

Today we’re introducing an easy way to measure your site’s performance across devices—from mobile to desktop—and give you a list of specific fixes that can help your business connect more quickly with people online.

You don’t need a lot of technical knowledge to understand your site’s performance. Just type in your web address and within moments you’ll see how your site scores. You can also get a detailed report to give you an idea of what to do next, and where to go for help at no charge. We recommend sharing it with your webmaster to help you plan your next steps and implement our suggested fixes.

Why you should test your site

Your customers live online. When they need information or want to find a nearby store or product, they grab the nearest device. On average, people check their phones more than 150 times a day,2 and more searches occur on mobile phones than computers.3 But if a potential customer is on a phone, and a site isn’t easy to use, they’re five times more likely to leave.4

To avoid losing out in these crucial moments, you need a site that loads quickly and is easy to use on mobile screens. The first step is seeing how your site is performing. We can help by scoring your site for mobile-friendliness, mobile speed, and desktop speed. Plus, it’s easy to share these scores. (By the way, if you’re a site guru, you may also want to visit PageSpeed Insights, which is the power behind the scores.)

What your scores say about your site
  • Mobile-friendliness: This is the quality of the experience customers have when they’re browsing your site on their phones. To be mobile-friendly, your site should have tappable buttons, be easy to navigate from a small screen, and have the most important information up front and center.
  • Mobile speed: This is how long it takes your site to load on mobile devices. If customers are kept waiting for too long, they’ll move on to the next site.
  • Desktop speed: This is how long it takes your site to load on desktop computers. It’s not just the strength of your customers’ web connection that determines speed, but also the elements of your website.
Test your site and find out what’s working, what’s not, and which fixes to consider.

The world’s gone mobile. Now, it’s your turn.


Posted by Yong Su Kim, VP SMB Sales Americas

1. Consumers in the Micro-Moment, Wave 3, Google/Ipsos, U.S., August 2015, n=1291 online smartphone users 18+
2. Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, “Internet Trends D11 Conference.” May 2013
3. Google internal data, for 10 countries including the U.S. and Japan, April 2015
4. Google, Sterling Research and SmithGeiger, “What Users Want Most From Mobile Sites Today.” July 2012