Is Your Website Mobile Friendly?
Why Mobile Friendly Websites are a Necessity
Is Your Website Mobile Friendly?
If your to-do list includes retooling your organization’s website, heed this advice now to avoid inevitable disappointment, lackluster performance and more $$$$ later. Your website has to be mobile friendly (aka “mobile responsive”). This isn’t a “nice-to-have” luxury—it’s a business necessity.
Recent findings from a comScore study drive home the point. Today, the majority of consumers are “multi-screeners” who search the Internet using a variety of devices. While the number of mobile users worldwide has officially surpassed the number of desktop users, the old school hasn’t lost its consumer clout. To the contrary, 91 percent of consumers use personal computers and laptops to access the World Wide Web. But they don’t use them exclusively, there’s serious overlap. 80 percent of consumers also use their smartphones to go online.
Google provides more food for thought. In their Mobile Path to Purchase Report, the search giant revealed that when they surveyed 950 U.S. consumers across nine popular business verticals—restaurants, food & cooking, finance, travel, home & garden, automotive, apparel & beauty, electronics, and health & nutrition—they discovered 48 percent of all searches begin on mobile devices.
What is the importance of this statistic? It means your website better look good and function flawlessly on a mobile device. If it doesn’t, you risk losing important customers, conversions and revenue.
Mobile Friendly Means Mobile Responsive
In the early days of mobile, many companies tried to create a carbon copy of their desktop design across multiple platforms. This often causes problems, especially when pairing text and photos. The mobile version of your site should be designed to fit the parameters of mobile display and technology. In essence, it should be mobile responsive.
So where do you begin? First, think about how a mobile user will interact with your site. Where are they most likely to do so? In their car? While they’re out shopping or dining? On their lunch break at work? At their kid’s Little League game? Since mobile access is typically “on-the-go” access, users often want a cliff notes version of your site. The prefer the most important nuggets served up front and center—fast. As a result, your mobile site may be a streamlined or simplified version of your main site. Give visual real estate to key information someone might be interested in accessing from their phone.
Use insights about your core customers to determine which “hot button” features they will want to see immediately. Just as importantly, consider what you want visitors to do when they are on your mobile site. If you’re a dermatologist with three offices across North Texas, do you want a visitor to book an appointment at the office nearest them? If you’re a restaurant, do you want a visitor to be able to place a to-go order on their way home from work?
These important revelations will become the basis for a “click-through” strategy that will guide the design of your mobile site.
Is Your Website Mobile Friendly?
If you’re still on the fence about whether or not you need to invest in a mobile responsive site, consider this. On April 21, 2015, Google implemented a new search algorithm that ranks mobile sites higher than non-responsive sites in their mobile search results. Mobile-first indexing is here to stay. Make sure your next website looks as good on your phone as it does on your laptop.
Not sure if your site complies? Google has created a tool—the Mobile-Friendly Test—that allows you to enter a URL to check its mobile responsiveness.
Frozen Fire is a Dallas internet marketing and video production company that helps companies harness digital marketing to engage customers in memorable and meaningful ways. Ways that ignite sales and business growth. Contact us to learn how we can help your business.