Mobile visitors spend 72 seconds with your message
More than half of our audience members now engage with our content, visit our webpages and read our emails on their mobile devices.
And that’s a problem. Because it’s a lot harder to reach readers on a phone screen than it is to reach them on a laptop or desktop.
When reading on mobile, your audience members:
Spend less time with your message
People spend an average of 150 seconds on a webpage visit on their desktops, but only 72 seconds on their phones, according to Mobile HCI.
Which means that attention spans on mobile devices are half as long as on desktops.
Plus, the average time people spend on a page is going down:
- Average time on screen 2004: 150 seconds
- 2012: 75 seconds
- 2023: 47 seconds
Which means attention spans are down 69% in 19 years.
Read more slowly
People read 20% to 30% slower online, according to a survey of nearly 30 years of research by Andrew Dillon, Ph.D., of the University of Texas.
Reading on mobile takes even longer, writes Kate Meyer, a user experience specialist for Nielsen Norman Group. People spend about 30 milliseconds more per word when reading on a phone than when reading on a laptop or desktop computer.
Let’s do the math: If readers spend less time and read more slowly, they’re absorbing less of your message.
Overcome the obstacles of reading on the small screen.
So how do you reach readers online, even when they’re reading on mobile devices? Get to the point faster, organize better, make it easier to read and more skimmable.
How can you reach mobile readers?
More than half of your audience members now receive your emails, visit your web pages and engage with your social media channels via their mobile devices, not their laptops.
Problem is, people spend half as long looking at web pages on their mobile devices than they do on their desktops. They read 20% to 30% slower online. And it’s 48% harder to understand information on a smartphone than a laptop.
In this environment, how can you reach readers online?
Learn how to overcome the obstacles of reading on the small screen at Reach Readers Online — our web-writing workshop starting Oct. 23. You’ll master a four-part system for getting the word out on mobile devices.
Save up to $100 with our group discounts.
