In the first part of January, I wrote a post calling on publishers to get ready for mobile delivery of web content.
At the time about a fifth of the traffic to this site came from mobile devices. In the spirit of full disclosure, I noted we had not yet made a mobile version of the site.
Since then, we've been working with our design partner, Dave Ross, to update the site and make a mobile version available. The update is ongoing, and the mobile version went live about a month ago. You can see the current version from any handheld device.
Since the change, traffic from mobile devices has increased 47%. In the last month, mobile accounted for about 27% of all site visits.
Mobile visitors now view more pages per visit (up 13%) and spend more time on the site (up 43%). Although engagement of mobile readers still lags that of visitors from other devices, the gap is shrinking.
Other encouraging statistics: the bounce rate for mobile visitors dropped almost nine points, and the share of return visitors increased to almost half of all mobile traffic. This latter figure now parallels what we see for access from other devices.
These are snapshots, not a final answer, but it appears that reconfiguring the site to support mobile has helped meet reader needs. That's a useful reminder for anyone in the content business.
