NEW YORK—Traffic to your practice's website is changing. Have you noticed?

All aspects of internet continue to change at a rapid, dynamic pace: web browsers adapt to allow for more website features, infrastructure changes to allow for more video content, and viewing devices change as well, impacting user browsing habits.

EyeCarePro works with the ODs directly to help them understand how all these changes affect their ability to communicate with existing patients and get new patients online.

The significant rise in mobile browsers not only means that web content has to be suitable for display on such browsers, but the nature of the content itself is changing as people are shifting their behavior to more frequent, shorter browsing experiences.

Take a step back and observe just how fast change is happening. The chart above displays the rise in mobile traffic over the past six months.

Thus far, according to EyeCarePro's tracking, 2013 has seen a 28 percent rise in mobile traffic, with mobile traffic breaking over 30 percent for the first time this year. July's mobile traffic across over 1,000 optometry practice websites was 30.8 percent, up from 29.9 percent in June. January started the year at 24 percent. As a result, EyeCarePro is projecting that by the close of 2013, close to 35 percent of all ECPs' website traffic will be coming from mobile devices, and likely that will reach 50 percent by the end of 2014.

Eric White, OD from Complete Family Vision Care in San Diego believes that "Mobile traffic is just one of the big changes happening online right now. It is a symptom of the fact that everyone is turning to the internet more, and more often to help make all their purchasing decisions. Which optometrist to go to is one of those decisions. We need to be as present and up-to-date as possible online, all the time!"

Tommy Lim, OD from Berryessa Optometry in San Jose reports, "Our patients often talk about how they found us online, and I can see them all browsing their phones while they're in our office. It's clear that mobile is the future, and that our online reputation is at stake today if we don't keep ahead of the times. Fortunately, we work with EyeCarePro who always keeps us one step ahead."

Carole Burns, OD from Professional VisionCare Inc. in Westerville, and Johnstown, Ohio has gone one step further: her mobile site not only looks great but has call tracking enabled. Call tracking allows her to not only track mobile traffic, but also report back on how many new appointments she's getting out of her site.

As Google's Matt Cutts said during his keynote speech at a recent large search engine optimization conference ( SMX),"You really need to be thinking about mobile. We're starting to think a lot about mobile." It is a time to embrace mobility and be a part of what's changing. As mobile traffic continues to rise over the next few months, ensure that your practice rises and grows with it.

Daniel Rostenne is CEO of EyeCarePro, which helps optometrists grow their practices with online marketing, web and mobile sites and call tracking services.