By Kamila Wcisel, Published October 14, 2014<
Smartphones provide us with an easy access to information on what we can find in the neighborhood. This is why optimizing businesses’ websites for viewing on mobile devices is crucial for their potential customers.
An astounding 94%1 of all smartphone users look for businesses in the vicinity. 84%1 of them take consumer action as a result – contact the business, visit its office, make a purchase from the business, or recommend it to others. That is why it is so important for your website to be mobile friendly and display well on mobile, as well as enable potential customers to contact your business directly. As many as 64%1 of people choose this way of reaching companies after finding local information. When you further promote your mobile site with location based advertising, you will take full advantage of the potential that the smartphone gives to local businesses.
Most small and medium business owners do not know how easy it is today to boost their company’s reach for free. Since it is the Internet that has nowadays become the main source of information about businesses, you should make sure the information about your company is easily accessible via the Google browser and Google Maps, visited everyday by millions of users. Google My Business, which is a free service, enables you to create such a digital business card in minutes.
When you make sure that complete and detailed information about your business is on the Internet, your customers will easily find you via the Google browser. Thanks to Google My Business, your digital business card will appear already in the search results, together with your business’s contact details, its opening hours and driving directions.
Your company will also be marked on Google Maps, enabling your customers to find your place, learn the opinions on your business left by other users right from the map, or check the contact details. You will have a chance to develop your Google+ profile, too, aimed at building your brand online, which involves creating your fan base, communicating with your audience, or collecting opinions on your business.
It is worth to take advantage of all the possibilities that adding your business to Google My Business gives. If you are running a restaurant, a shop, or a hotel, your aim is to draw customers to your place. You can choose an option for storefront businesses and make it easy to find your company on Google Maps. If, however, you offer your services within a specific area, like plumbers, taxi services, or pizza delivery, you can choose a solution for service area businesses and mark the entire area that your activity covers on the map.
Another attractive opportunity is the ability to add photos to the information about your business. These images can already appear in the search results within your digital business card, together with the photographs of your place in the Street View, from a passerby’s perspective.
Finally, adding your company to Google My Business means that you will be visible on computers, smartphones and tablets, regardless of where their users will be at a given moment, in short – always and everywhere. Moreover, you will let your mobile users contact your company directly from your digital business card available in the search results, simply by tapping the “Call” button, which automatically dials your phone number on their smartphone.
A smartphone user that comes across your digital business card on Google and taps on the “Website” button, expects an attractive and functional mobile website, where they can learn more about your company and check its detailed offer. When your potential customer enters your website, you will only have a few seconds to persuade them to try out your services. That is why by creating a mobile site for your company, you will get fully prepared for a today’s customer – mobile consumer.
Sources:
1 Our Mobile Planet: United States of America – Understanding the Mobile Consumer, May 2013, Google
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