Mobile Browsing of Restaurant Websites 30% of All Traffic

In May 2012 one of Sherpa's clients — a prominent restaurant group in Atlanta — reported that a full 30% of their restaurant website visitors browsed the website with a mobile device. In fact, mobile browsing has more than doubled since the same month last year.

This huge growth isn't restaurant website-specific. Nationwide, mobile browsing accounts for 20% of North American web traffic.

We've also noticed the following about mobile browsing for restaurant websites:

• Mobile traffic peaks on Saturday. Saturday is consistently the highest mobile browsing date, with Friday and Sunday serving as ramp up/down days. Is your restaurant web site open to mobile browsers on Saturday?
• Mobile traffic spikes at 6pm, and then quickly drops. This is slightly different from desktop traffic, which peaks a bit earlier at 5pm, and drops around 8pm. Web users want instant, real-time information just prior to their restaurant visit; not a chunky PDF menu, slow-loading desktop website, or troublesome interface
• Mobile browsing is done mostly with smartphones. Only 1/3 of mobile browsing is with a tablet like an iPad. It's unfortunate that "tablet" is grouped into "mobile". While both are touch/gesture based, what can be displayed in the viewports are very different. In addition, smartphones have bandwidth concerns, while tablets tend to have faster Wi-Fi connectivity.

Is your mobile website traffic increasing? What trends have you noticed?