Don’t think you need to spend the money to make your website mobile friendly? Brushing off the onslaught of apps? Forging ahead without a mobile marketing plan? We humbly ask you to reconsider. Mobile isn’t the future anymore. It’s the present.

About 60% of the world’s population are now using mobile phones. Of the world’s 4 billion mobile phones currently in use, 1.08 billion are smartphones. That’s 27% and the number is on the rise. According to a recent survey by CNNMoney, just iPhones make up 29% of the current American market.

Of that same 4 billion cell phones in use, 77% are SMS enabled. Every 6 months since June 2003, SMS traffic volumes have increased at least 37% in the U.S.

Mobile searches have quadrupled in the last year and 1 in 3 mobile searches are local. After looking up a local business on their smartphone, 61% of users called the business and 59% visited. Usage is expected to double within 5 years as mobile overtakes the PC as the most popular way to get on the Web.

Time is no object. Americans spend on average 2.7 hours per day “socializing” on a mobile device. “That’s 2 times the amount of time they spend eating, and over 1/3 of the time they spend sleeping.”

Advertisers have figured all this mobile growth out. Search and location ads currently are the highest generator of revenue, while video ads are expected to see the fastest growth through 2015. Google’s gross revenue from mobile advertising is over $1 billion per year.

It is officially time to take notice. 32% of survey respondents say they search more by phone than by computer and 66% admit to using mobile web while simultaneously working on a computer.

According to Google thinkinsights, 82% of survey respondents notice ads on smartphones. 82% of U.S. shoppers use smartphones while in the store for purchase decisions; however, 79% of large online advertisers do not have a mobile optimized website.

These are staggering statistics. Not to sound like a 1970s life insurance sales man, but you cannot afford NOT to invest in this opportunity. Mobile search, web browsing and purchasing are increasing at exponential rates. If you haven’t looked into optimizing your healthcare site for mobile browsing, you are missing a piece of the local search pie.

Here are a few easy steps to take to optimize your site for the mobile user:

1. Talk to your web guru about building a simple CSS for mobile. Having a seperate CSS for mobile users easily sends them to sites designed for mobile viewing.
2. Add “viewport” to your meta tags to allow your user to scale a website.
3. Include an easy-access link to the full website from your mobile site just in case.
4. Hide all Flash elements or replace its function with HTML if it is vital.
5. Use clean, semantic markup to make it a little bit easier to load on mobile devices and SEO-friendly.

Have more tips? Want to know more? Having your iPhone surgically attached to you left hand? Tell us about it!