I recently had the chance to sit down with the great folks over at Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty in Westchester, New York, to discuss their current mobile strategy, changes they want to make for the present and where they want to go in the near future. Matt and Joe Rand proved to be industry leaders on the mobile real estate forefront over a year ago when they launched the robust mobile version of www.RandRealty.com which was unlike any mobile site of its kind at the time. Their new initiatives will only serve to preserve that leadership role—I can assure you of that having had a sneak peak—but that’s not what we will focus on here.
Instead, what I think is even more worthwhile than where the Rands are headed in the future, is reviewing the success they have had with what they have already done. A report that was presented during this meeting showed that their mobile website was the firm’s 12th largest source of traffic, just slightly less than Realtor.com, the 11th largest source. If that doesn’t put into perspective how many consumers are accessing your website from their mobile devices on a daily basis then I don’t know will.
In addition, of all the other sources of traffic, their mobile site stacked up as the source with the third highest pages per visit, second highest minutes on site (8.9 minutes), and second lowest bounce rate! Let’s break the consumer mentality of each of these down individually:
Pages per visit – Unlike searching the web on your desktop, where you can open tab after tab and have virtually unlimited choices of which sites/pages you want to look at information, on mobile, your choices are still limited. When you reach a destination that makes searching efficient and easy on a mobile device, you tend not to stray to other sites but rather get as much info as possible from the one you’re already on. This, in addition to GPS, which shows you what’s directly near you, leads to a high number of pages per visit.
Minutes on Site – Again, because of the limited choices for effective and efficient mobile searching, people tend to stick to what’s working. When you provide a quality experience on mobile, you can capture their undivided attention (when it comes to pages being viewed) because of limited screen size and inability to easily bounce from tab to tab as on a desktop browser.
Bounce Rate – Bounce rate is a term used to describe users who get to a site and leave before viewing any additional pages. Having a properly formatted mobile site will significantly decrease your bounce rate from mobile users because you are now providing them the information they are looking for immediately. Now, they can effectively navigate through the site to get the exact information they are looking for.
Of course, none of this happens by accident. Rand provides great marketing and communication that increases consumer awareness of the mobile site. The numbers above, however, speak to the success and benefit of having a properly formatted mobile website. For more information on how to mobilize your website visit www.MobileRealEstateID.com.
