If your business is like most, search is a crucial component of your success, and mobile search is a natural extension of that. Literally everyone is searching from their mobile devices these days. 85 percent of mobile devices will be Web-enabled by next year. You need to take a harsh, critical look at your mobile presence and ensure that you have a solid, long-term strategy for addressing this critical aspect. You don’t get to decide which platform or device your customers use to access your content: they do.

Mobile is no longer a playground in which to experiment. It is a very real place to do business, build relationships and deliver first impressions to your customers. Mobile represents an opportunity to build your business faster and make better decisions on the back of technology. I personally believe that mobile may very well determine the future of your business, and the place to start is with ensuring that every page on your site is set up to present you appropriately in the search results.

More importantly, 36 percent of most marketing emails are first opened on mobile devices. What do your messages look like on most modern phones. I am dumbfounded by the number of messages I receive that are still not optimized for my phone. It leaves me with less than a positive first impression. In fact, it turns that first impression into no impression — a wasted opportunity.

Before you consider building a mobile-optimized site or an app, look at your existing marketing activities and ensure that you are putting your best foot forward in the place that your customers are most likely to be — on their phones.