Mobile-Accessed Sites More Important in Some Industries Than Others

Mobile sites arguably are more important in some verticals than others. Travel comes to mind. But restaurants and bars might be among the industries most amenable to value created by mobile apps and websites.

After analyzing  traffic statistics of 14,000 websites over four years, Let's Eat, a builder of mobile app sites for the restaurant industry, notes that about half of all visits to restaurant websites consist of mobile traffic.

During the week, about a third of visits to restaurant-related sites come from mobile devices. On weekends, the percentage shoots up to nearly half of all visits. You can probably guess why that pattern exists.

During the week, when many people are at desks, it arguably is easy enough to check for a place to go eat from a PC. On weekends, when people are more likely to be out and about, using a mobile will often make more sense.

Mobile traffic has increased at a fairly regular rate over the last four years, from just three percent of traffic in October 2009 to 43 percent of restaurant site traffic in October 2013.

You also might not be surprised that population density affects use of mobile devices to get restaurant information. In urban areas associated with higher population density, people are more likely to be out and about during hours when restaurants are open, and needed.

Also, in smaller communities, it is more likely that people generally know where to find a particular restaurant or type of food.