SMBs Get More Mobile
One in three have a mobile-optimized website
September 22, 2015
Most small and medium-sized businesses based in the US still don’t have a mobile-optimized website, according to research—but the share that does is has grown significantly over the past year.
According to research from RBC Capital Markets conducted in September 2015, 64% of US small and medium-sized businesses had a professional website for their business, and an additional 10% planned to create one. That represented mixed progress since the prior year, when just 60% had a site but 17% planned to create one.
Among the group of SMBs that had or planned to create a website, just 33% had a mobile-optimized site in September 2015. That amounts to 24.4% of the overall respondent base. But a year earlier, mobile sites were even more rare: 26% of SMBs with a website had a site optimized for mobile.
It’s clear that for SMBs, keeping an up-to-date digital presence can be a challenge. Once a site is up, the same survey found, it’s not typically updated very often.
And mobile is a challenge of its own. Though small-business owners are keen on using mobile themselves, Capital One Spark Business found in April 2015 that just 6% of US small businesses had invested in mobile for marketing.
A March survey by Endurance International Group found small businesses agreed that mobile was important for increasing sales and engagement and staying competitive, but there was a long way to go in actually implementing mobile solutions. Half of those surveyed had no mobile presence at all, and among those who did, time and resources were among their biggest strategy challenges.