It’s time for our annual look at how Peace Country web surfers are carving the web wave. Specifically, what types of devices they’re using, and how they’re arriving on your website.
It goes without saying that we’re all using our phones for everything from work to playtime. So when you’re the one trying to get information into the hands of existing and potential customers, you’re going to need a fast-loading, easy to navigate mobile (and touch) friendly website.
But really… how big a deal is this for Peace Country businesses and local governments? With rural areas comprising large portions of the local trading areas, is it really as big an issue here than in say, New York, New York?
It is.
When we reviewed the stats for our higher trafficked local government websites, which tend to provide a good cross section of all types of users, we noticed that over half of website traffic was on mobile devices (including tablets).
Where is it all coming from? Aren’t phones less easy to navigate and find information on?
To find the answer, we need not look further than the notification you probably have on your phone’s home screen right now.
Facebook.
The means by which a user finds their way on to your website is called a “Channel” (see Google’s terminology). When reviewing the same website as above, we saw that “channels” were pretty evenly split among three categories:
- Social
- Organic Search
- Direct
Stats showing “Social” as the channel means they arrived by clicking on something in a social media feed, usually Facebook.
When they’ve arrived through an “Organic Search“, they have found you in a search result, usually Google.
And finally, if they’ve arrived “Direct“-ly, they likely typed your web address in manually.
So your next three questions for your marketing staff should be:
- Are we using our social media profiles effectively?
- Are we showing up well in search results?
- Are we emphasizing our website’s domain name in our promotions and printed materials?
Answering those questions will help to ensure you’re riding that online wave better than ever!
