Website Content Strategy Should Balance Desktop and Mobile

A website content strategy that balances desktop and mobile versions will improve time management and return on investment.

Websites rarely have the same amount of desktop and mobile visitors. If anything, mobile has grown so much that many sites now get more mobile visitors than desktop visitors. And the growth shows no signs of abating.

Likewise, they rarely have the same amount of desktop and mobile ad revenue, transactions or other forms of income. But large differences can reveal weaknesses in either platform, especially mobile.

So the first step in developing a website content strategy is research. The research should identify how much audience and revenue each one is producing. From there, the focus is on tactics such as:

• How much time to spend on design and enhancements.
• Whether one version gets more or less new content than the other one.
• How much time to spend on optimizing new or existing content.
• Analyzing the search engine rankings for the mobile and desktop versions of the same article.

Revenue and Audience Potential

The next step for a publisher is realizing that the numbers may not reflect the potential of the site for attracting more audience and revenue from either platform. A staff that doesn’t invest enough effort into a mobile version will likely see mobile results that are lower than desktop.

Consider two sites with similar content. If Site A has only 10 percent of the total in mobile and Site B has 30 percent, it’s safe to assume that mobile in Site A has more potential for growth. It’s especially true because many sites now get more mobile than desktop traffic.

Great efforts don’t always produce great results in a website content strategy. An effort to develop mobile in Site A may not bring the total audience and revenue up to the same level as Site B. For that reason, it may help to do an incremental approach to the development rather than a major, costly and time-consuming leap. Smaller steps may mean lower rewards but also lower risks.

Track Website Labor and Cash

Leaping into mobile too much has another risk. Desktop does tend to produce more revenue than mobile for many websites, although it is becoming less common. A mobile project that consumes too much time could result in desktop results getting weaker.

Digital resources usually consist of labor (time) and cash. Both are easy to track.

Some digital shops (including my own) track all time down to small increments such as 15 minute blocks. They categorize those blocks according to the various business functions, such as content, marketing, administration, etc.

The content part of such a tracking system can divide further into desktop and mobile. Monthly results with audience and revenue can then reveal if the return on investment is worth it or not.  They also show whether the time commitment should increase, decrease or stay the same.

Some business owners may not track any time this way. In that case, it’s simply a matter of setting aside X number of hours each week to focus on just mobile development. Consistency is key.

Even if a business doesn’t have a time management tracking system, almost all businesses track monthly revenue and expenses. Again, those numbers will show whether the return on investment of labor and cash is worthwhile or not.

Turn Up the Heat, But Not Too Much

If someone at home is cold during winter, they may turn up the gauge on the furnace. But who turns the gauge up from 72 degrees to 92 degrees? Probably not too many people.

A smart business owner usually doesn’t do so either with any initiative that may or may not increase customers and revenue.

The Internet is littered with the bodies of companies that have thrown too much at a project without carefully tracking the results.

A website content strategy that balances desktop and mobile platforms will have a better chance of success if it evolves with small- or medium-sized steps.