60% of Search Now Mobile + Rise of CRO

60% of ALL Search is Now Mobile, according to the latest Google search stats. And this is why Conversion Rate Optimization is becoming ever more popular…

Google Search Stats 2019: Mobile’s On The Up – And That’s Significant…

Back in 2014, the amount of Google searches (total) coming from mobile devices was 34%. In 2019, it’s upwards of 60%, according to the latest stats – and that is significant for anyone that owns and runs a website…

Why? Because the web, in most cases, runs slower on mobiles – 3G connections are still commonly used in many countries, despite the arrival of 5G. For this reason, you need a super-lightweight site that loads incredibly fast because load time effects bounce rate, and high bounce rates are not good…

“Due to low infrastructure and financial restraints,” notes Statista, “many emerging digital markets skipped the desktop internet phase entirely and moved straight onto mobile internet via smartphone and tablet devices. India is a prime example of a market with a significant mobile-first online population.”

This is one of the #1 reasons why premium WordPress hosts like Kinsta (you can read our review of Kinsta here) and WP Engine exist and are doing so well in 2019. They leverage things like The Google Cloud and advanced CDN networks to ensure rapid loading times for their clients.

• Kinsta WordPress Hosting – Kinsta is what we use on KYM, that’s why the site loads so fast – on mobile and desktop. With Kinsta, you have a range of plans that start from just $30 a month. You also get free SSL, access to a HUGE, global CND network and 100% uptime for your site. Guaranteed.
• WP Engine Hosting – Like Kinsta, WP Engine is arguably one of the best WordPress hosting platforms on the planet. It uses The Google Cloud, offers automatic migration of your existing site to its servers, free SSL and CDN, and it is one of the fastest WordPress hosts around.

And because speed is one of Google’s #1 ranking factors, you can expect to see even more growth for premium hosting services in 2019 and beyond – and not just from major publishers and platforms. Anyone with a blog that is serious about maximising their site’s performance cannot afford NOT to have proper hosting. And Kinsta and WP Engine are the #1 WordPress hosting platforms on the planet right now.

Users Behave Differently on Mobile Too…

Phones are getting bigger, but their displays are still WAY smaller than the average PC and/or laptop. For this reason, content looks different on each platform – and having responsive design isn’t enough.

You need to think about everything from text size to the positioning of your ads and things like menus. On top of this, you need a completely different lead-generation strategy for mobile as well. And email? Yeah, you need to collect them differently too.

Again, this is why CRO is now constantly trumping SEO as the #1 most value tool to businesses and brands competing online.

In order to understand EXACTLY what works best on your sites, you need to be constantly testing different layouts, button placements, and CTA placements on your site. This is GROUND ZERO for CRO. Done properly, the results can be staggering.

How CRO Increases Conversions…

In a Google Optimize case study, a Dutch company called Rituals increased its conversions by 85% using basic CRO concepts and testing them using Google Optimize.

“We wanted to reach people who were really interested in buying our products,” says Mattanja de Vries, Display Advertising Specialist at Rituals. “Our team was already using Google Marketing Platform to manage and optimize our marketing, so Conversion Probability in Analytics 360 was the perfect fit.”

Google’s Conversion Probability tool, which is found inside Optimize, uses machine learning to evaluate dozens of signals like location, device, and more to predict how likely a user is to later convert.

“Instead of manually creating audiences based on different product IDs and categories as they had in the past,” notes the Google Optimize Blog, “Mattanja and her team could now create their audiences based on the highest probability of conversion as calculated by Analytics 360.”

Desktop vs Mobile Search & Its Role In Conversion Rate Optimization

Essentially, you have to think about two things at once: 1) your mobile users’ experience and 2) your desktop users. How are they interacting differently on mobile and desktop? Does one type of device drive more conversions than the other? Where are all your email leads coming from?

Leveraging CRO and the relevant tools for performing it, as well as analysing the results, will show you exactly where the holes in your site are on both mobile and desktop. This is why brands like Google, Vodafone, and Apple invest billions in CRO every year – it helps them better understand their audiences and, in turn, improve their earnings from them.

A Simple CRO Hack Anyone Can Do (With No Knowledge of CRO)

What works on desktop, for example, does not always work on mobile. This is why OptinMonster, one of the best email lead capture tools on the planet, has specific forms for targeting mobile users.

The forms it uses for targeting mobile users are smaller and designed specifically for mobile sites. You have things like pop-ups, slide-in forms, and hello bars. All you have to do is find out which one works best for you – and this is CRO.

By running tests on different OptinMonster banners, you can see which one performs the best. When you have a winner, you use that one to collect your emails. Simple, right? You’ve just done CRO.

Targeting users on mobiles, with smaller screens, is more tricky, as you have less room to play with. Plus Google DOES NOT like pop-ups on mobile, either… For this reason, you HAVE to use email capture forms that are designed for mobile. And OptinMonster’s are some of the best in the business.

This is just he tip of the iceberg, however, when it comes to building the best experiences for your mobile and desktop visitors. In order to remain competitive, you need to adopt new strategies for testing, commit to A/B testing everything, and learn and understand how to use the best CRO tools on the market right now.

Hell, this kind of stuff is so important, Google’s even getting in on the action…

Google Has A Tool For CRO; It’s Called Google Optimize

Google Optimize is a true game-changer for anyone that’s interested in improving the performance of their site. With Google Optimize, you can run a multitude of tests on your site, researching different page layouts, different colors, and different placements of buttons and CTAs.

“Optimise is natively integrated with Analytics to help you identify which parts of your site need improvement. Use your Analytics site data to quickly and easily identify problem areas, then turn those insights into action to deliver an online experience that works best for your customers,” says Google.

And best of all, Google Optimize is completely free. If you’re completely new to the idea of CRO and Google Optimize, you might want to start learning more about it because, with a solid grounding in CRO, you can increase your site’s monetary performance without increasing your overall traffic – crazy, right?

Example: say you’re running Google Ads on your site, and they’re doing a few thousand dollars a month. What if you could increase the clicks on ads by 2X or even 3X? That would translate into significantly more revenue for you without actually increasing the number of actual ad impressions.

With CRO, this is exactly what you do: you test the positioning of ads on your website or blog to find out which spots get the most clicks. I would use a tool like HotJar for this, as it features heat-maps (where people click most) and user recordings, so you can watch how people interact with pages.

A good starting point for leaning more about CRO would be this online course via UDEMY; it covers all the basics and gives you access to tons of experiments and tests you can adopt on your site right away. Applied learning is always best, hence why I recommend any newbies to CRO check this course out.