Hi, I’m Leo Sato, the CEO of a digital marketing company in Taiwan called applemint.
Recently, I created a landing page (LP) for a client in Taiwan, and while making the LP, I was conscious of 1 thing:
I made it thoroughly optimized for mobile experience. You might think, “Oh, that’s a responsive website!”
The difference between a responsive website and mobile optimized LP is that the former just adapts to from desktop size to mobile size. In other words, the size just shrinks.
Mobile-optimized websites/LPs are fundamentally different from the traditional way of production. And the results of creating a mobile-optimized website have led to tremendous improvements in the numbers in Taiwan.
In this blog, I’d like to share with you the fresh and new data from our recent improvements. In addition,I’d like to explain why mobile-optimized websites are necessary in Taiwan and how mobile-optimized websites are different from conventional production.
If you’re a BtoB company or a company that has “Contact Us” as the goal of your website, this is a must-see! (Read on and you’ll see what I mean.)
Contents
Why do we need to create a mobile-optimized website in the first place?
Why do we need to create a mobile-optimized website in the first place? I’d like to explain a little.
First of all, in Taiwan, about 80% of the traffic from digital ads comes from mobile from my experience. What this means is that if you spend, let’s say, 10,000 USD a day on an ad budget, your 8,000 USD worth of ads will be shown on mobile devices.
This is due to the growing use of smartphones by Taiwanese consumers and the increasing amount of time they spend on them. Please see the green area below.
In Taiwan, there are 28 million people who access the Internet via smartphones, which is 1.2 times more than the population of 23 million. This means that each person owns more than one smartphone, tablet or other device.
And it’s not just in Taiwan that mobile usage is on the rise, but also in the U.S. According to 2020 U.S. data, Americans no longer watch more TV than they do on their phones: The data shows that people spend roughly 4 hours on smartphone versus 3.7 hours on TV.
Cost per click for mobile is lower than desktop.
Next, I would like to talk about the fact that the cost per click on displaying ads to mobile devices is usually lower than that of desktop devices.
Normally, the cost per click is lowest for mobile, followed by tablet, and highest for desktop. Just keep in mind that the cost per click increases in accordance with the size of the screen.
In addition, digital ads to desktops usually have a higher conversion rate than delivery to mobile devices. It can be said that the larger the website screen, the longer the time spent on the site, which leads to higher conversion rates.
It is interesting to note that the conversion rate is often higher on mobile devices than on tablet devices. This is strange because tablets have larger screens than mobile devices.
Existence of a mobile-first index
Next, let me talk about the “Mobile First Index“. Mobile-first indexing is a new search results standard that Google would begin to implement in earnest in March 2021.
To explain it very simply, it means that search results used to be based on the usability of the desktop but now it will be based on mobile.
For example, if a user enters the applemint website through a mobile device or a desktop device, the user’s behavior will be different. Google used to base their rankings on the behavior of the user coming in from the desktop, but now they will base their rankings on the mobile behavior of the user.
Finally, here’s a summary of how important mobile optimized websites are
- The importance of “mobile” in Taiwan
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・Taiwanese are using their mobile devices more and more frequently.
・Digital ads are cheaper on mobile.
・Google is focusing on mobile sites.
The process of creating a mobile-optimized website
Design of a mobile-optimized website starts with a mobile design. Here is what I mean: Most companies usually design the desktop first but we start from mobile device.
Here is a Japanese famous typography company Morisawa LP that we designed.
Using the prototype tool (a tool for creating sample websites), we first designed the mobile site, circled in yellow above. I asked the client to check the mobile version first. Once the design of the mobile ver. was OK, we then designed the desktop ver.
I know that many companies still design desktop versions of design first and then mobile but the order started to reverse about 2-3 years ago. So this story is nothing new.
It’s okay to start designing from the desktop version, but we recommend that you start designing from mobile. The reason for this is that we prioritize mobile UX/UI over desktop UX/UI.
If you design from the desktop version and then design the mobile version, you will inevitably have to compromise on the mobile design.
What to Consider in a Mobile-Optimized Website
Next, let’s talk about the specific points that we need to be aware of in mobile optimization. That is, how to make it easy to reach your goal.
Amazon offers great convenience in which all subsequent purchases are just one click away.
In this blog, I’d like to talk about how we (BtoB company) made our goal (inquiry) easier to reach on mobile devices for the users.
What we’ve done is to add a LINE@ button. Here is an example from our site.
There is a LINE inquiry button on the Contact Us page and another LINE inquiry button on the menu. (By the way, these buttons are only displayed on mobile devices)
Actually, this idea has been in the works for a long time, as one of applemint’s customers had successfully raised their CVR of inquiry by adding a LINE inquiry. It’s been a while since then, but we finally introduced LINE@ to our company recently.
Also, last month, we were fortunate enough to receive a request to make a LP from Handa Juku (Handa cram school), a Japanese language school. Of course, we adopted LINE inquiry.
What was the result?
Amazing results!
Also, for Shigeta Juku, the inquiry rate increased by 900% between before and after the implementation. That’s an amazing effect! It just goes to show how effective a mobile-conscious website can be.
However, there is one thing to keep in mind when introducing LINE@ inquiry.
Poor quality leads will come in: The ease with which you can contact people means that there will be an increase in the number of inquiries that will not lead to restrictions.
So if you already have lots of inquiries, you might not want to do this….
NEXT ACTION
Finally, I would like to wrap up this blog by summarizing what I have said so far and describing the next action. First, let’s recognize the fact that in Taiwan, people are spending more and more time on their smartphones.
Also, Google will start supporting mobile-friendly websites in 2021. Therefore, the future of websites is mobile-friendly websites.
When creating a mobile-optimized website, it is important to decide on the mobile design first, instead of designing the desktop and then the mobile.
If you are a BtoB company or a company whose website goal is “Contact Us”, and you want to make your website mobile-friendly, you should consider LINE@. So far, the numbers have been very good in Taiwan.
That’s the story from applemint’s CEO, Sato, about how a mobile-optimized LP in Taiwan improved our numbers tremendously.
We do a lot of AB testing of websites and LPs in Taiwan, and we are very conscious of creating websites that work. The reason why our websites are so effective is because our production is based on Google Analytics, other data analysis tools, and AB test data from the past 4 years.
Other production companies’ websites may be pretty, but they usually do not know how to use and analyze data.
If you are interested, please contact us here. We will improve your website.
Click to contact applemint.
