We live in a world that is constantly on the go. Over two thirds of Americans own a smartphone of either an iPhone or Android persuasion and they use these devices daily to access the internet for everything from text messages to email to web searches.
In order to appeal to this rapidly growing base of mobile web users, smart website owners are creating mobile-friendly responsive websites that are designed to viewed on their visitor’s smartphone display. Attracting more visitors isn’t the only reason you should consider using a mobile-friendly design for your website.
Consider these:
Improved User Experience
Mobile websites are specifically designed for handheld devices – nobody wants to browse a desktop website on a small screen. Many mobile web browsers do a great job of displaying desktop sites but all the pinching and zooming required to read the site’s content make it a two-handed operation on a device that was designed to be used by a single hand. This creates frustration in the mind of your user. A frustrated user is not likely to buy anything now nor are they likely to return in the future.
Faster
A mobile website is designed from the ground up to require a minimal amount of bandwidth to start displaying the content to the user. This makes your website appear to be faster and therefore easier to use.
Immediate Engagement and Geolocation
A mobile website provides ways for you to engage with your visitors in ways that are not possible in a desktop environment. The most obvious is the ability to immediately call you with a single click as well as being alerted when they are close to your store. As Augmented Reality (AR) is perfected there will be ways for you to display information to your visitors that changes according to where they are and what direction they are facing.
Improved Search/SEO Rankings
A mobile website gets better ranking on search engines. Since the search engines know which searches originate from mobile devices, it make sense that they show mobile-friendly results to those visitors. This has been the case for a long time now. If your site isn’t mobile, you are missing out on some visitors.
Advantage Over Your Competitors
Having an easier to use, faster to load, better ranked website than your competitors means that visitors will come to your site more often and engage longer than otherwise. Keeping your visitors engaged for a longer time period give you a greater likelyhood of making the sale.
Integration with Offline Media
Ever seen a QR code? Aren’t they great? Since your user is standing there with a camera integrated with a web browser, isn’t that a great way to easily transport them to your website from a flier, poster, magazine ad, etc.? Pop Quiz: What percentage of those visitors will be on mobile devices? RIGHT! 100%
If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you are not likely to hold their interest and that would be a shame given the dollars spent on those other forms of advertising.
Inevitability
Given that mobile web browsers will replace desktop browser as the most preferred web access device, you would be wise to get ready now. Staying with a desktop-only website will cause you to see your traffic drop off more and more as time passes. That’s just not good for business.
Need Help?
If you’d like to learn more about developing a mobile-friendly website for your business, please contact us for a free, no obligation consultation. We look forward to hearing from you.