Last year, Google's paid links (listings powered by Adwords) saw traffic from mobile devices account for 25 percent of clickthroughs -- a significant number, and one that law firms must pay attention to.

When looking at consistency between natural Google rankings on desktops and smart phones, we see little changes. About 85 percent of desktop rankings have the same position when conducting a search on a smart phone or via tablet.

Those other 15 percent are generally websites that do not have a mobile-friendly website or a responsive web design, and generally perform worse on mobile searches. Since Google is aware of the device a user is using, we can expect them to improve their mobile search engine to be more selective.

If you are on a road trip and craving some pizza, you can get out your smart phone and type in “pizza.” Knowing your location, Google will display pizzerias near your present location. Searches for lawyers work the same way.

If Google displayed a website for a pizzeria that was not mobile-friendly, thus making it difficult to navigate, you might start using some other search engine on your smart phone, like Bing. Google knows this; they want to display mobile-friendly websites for mobile searches, so that Google's loyal desktop users also remain loyal mobile search users.

A mobile-friendly website acts much like your normal website, except it's scaled down for easier use on smaller touch-screen devices. However, your mobile ranking in Google is based on your desktop (aka, full-size) website; a well-optimized website that has an available mobile website is usually sufficient to keep your high placement for mobile searches.

With the content of the mobile website is not yet a major ranking factor, your firm can focus less on mobile textual content and more on easier navigation and an intuitive user experience. Making a mobile website comfortable to use will help improve mobile conversions. With 2013 poised to deliver more than a quarter of your visitors via a mobile device, your firms' mobile ranking and mobile interface is an important consideration in this years' marketing plan.

Other Resources: The Bigger Law Firm magazine | Legal News |Attorney Press Release Distribution

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