More Australian small to medium businesses (SMEs) are responding to Australia’s adoption of smartphones and tablets, according to the annual Sensis ‘Ebusiness Report’.

96% of Australians are now online and the proportion accessing the internet via a tablet increased to 50% (up from 34% in 2012) and 68% via a smartphone (up from 58% in 2012).

“The number of SMEs that have optimised their websites for mobile devices has almost doubled, to 17%, in the past year, up from 9% in 2012, and 5% in 2011,” says report author Christena Singh.

“For Australian businesses to remain competitive it is vital that they have a website that works well on portable devices.

“Although there is more work to be done, these are encouraging signs that SMEs intend to capitalise on the opportunities that portable devices present with a further 24% planning to introduce mobile sites in the coming year,” Singh says.

The report also found consumers are using their mobile devices for different online tasks:

• Tablet users were more likely to look for information on products and services (66%) and suppliers of goods and services (63%),
• smartphone users were more likely to look for information such as maps and weather updates and use social networking sites (71% each), and
• 48% of tablet users use them to order products and services compared to 36% of smartphone users.

“Consumers in higher income brackets are more likely to use their portable devices to research and purchase so it’s important that businesses can be easily found online if they are to make the most of this trend,” says Singh.

Other key findings include:

• The number of SMEs using internet marketing increased to 45% in the past year, up from 38%,
• 32% are using search engine optimisation (up from 29% in 2012),
• 29% are advertising on social networks (up from 22%), and
• 21% are using paid search engine marketing (up from 17%).