With the incredible growth in the use of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets to locate products and services, online, businesses of all sizes need to rethink their approach to their websites as a tool for client acquisition and lead generation.
In the UK alone, it is estimated that mobile phone web browsing will outstrip desktop usage by 2015. More and more people are using their mobile phones and tablets to browse the web and most importantly they are searching for local businesses, like yours.
Yet surprisingly, most businesses haven’t optimized their sites for mobile phone browsing. With the phenomenal growth in the use of smartphones, a site that has been designed merely to be viewed on a desktop PC will come across as severely lacking.
What Is A Responsive, Mobile Friendly Website?
A responsive website is one that looks good, loads fast and is easy to navigate no matter whether you’re looking at it on a mobile phone, tablet, or desktop computer.
Responsive websites are simply this – a website that is designed in such a way that it adjusts seamlessly to fit on a desktop computer, tablet, and smartphone, providing an optimised viewing experience for each device.
What A Mobile/Responsive Website Is Not
A mobile responsive website is NOT a separate website, on a different web address (usually m.yourdomain.com), that is stripped of all but the most essential information.
The problem with separate mobile websites is that Google will see it as a completely separate entity to your desktop website, which means that all the effort you may have been spending on improving your search engine rankings for your main website – will be lost on a separate mobile website .
Five Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Responsive Mobile Website
1. Mobile Sites Provide Better User Experience
Try to view a desktop version of a website on your smart phone and you’ll realize that the experience isn’t great.
The website is cumbersome to navigate and information isn’t easy to read or access. You’ll find yourself zooming in and out just to view a certain part of the page which will make for a rather frustrating browsing experience.
Mobile websites are programmed to work well with the smaller screens of mobile devices. Not only are mobile website easier to navigate, they are also developed with touchscreens in mind. Many studies site that at least, 38% of people leave a website because it was not developed specifically for mobile users. They complain that it was too hard to use and locate information.
2. Immediacy
Most people carry their smartphones everywhere and use them to make immediate purchasing decisions and to take quick action.
The very nature of this shift in consumer behaviour dictates that your business has an optimised and mobile presence so your business’s products and services are accessible in the manner that your customer wants to locate them.
3. You’ll get higher search engine rankings
A business with both a mobile-friendly website enjoys a distinct advantage over businesses that do not have a mobile site.
All the major search engines, including Google rank mobile-optimized businesses higher than their non optimised competition.
4. Better Reach Than An App
Many businesses question whether they should invest their marketing bucks into a mobile app or a mobile website.
If you’re going to search for any type of business, you’re going to search the mobile web, not an app store, thus the case for building a mobile-friendly website over developing an app is clear.
Mobile friendly websites also offer the benefit of simpler cross-platform scalability: they work on all platforms, while apps are device-specific, requiring a business to develop a separate app for iPhone, Android Phones Windows phones etc .
Mobile websites are also Google Analytics-friendly: tracking clicks and behaviour is as simple on a mobile site as it is on an old-fashioned webpage.
5. Set Yourself Apart From Competitors
Despite the many compelling reasons for setting up a mobile website for your business, there are still many businesses that haven’t taken advantage of the huge opportunity for winning new business that the mobile web presents.
This gives YOUR business a golden opportunity to stand out amongst your competitors and create positive impressions to your prospects and potential customers.
How Expensive Are Mobile Websites To Build?
Building a responsive mobile friendly website DOES increase the number of hours, and the skill level, put into the design, layout and development, so you can expect it to cost 25% more than a standard, “desktop only” website
But if not having a mobile website causes you to lose a client – we think that there’s a very strong case to be made for the extra cost and the return on investment for your business.
Do You Need To Take Action?
To answer this question, try to view your company’s website on an iPhone, android phone or blackberry device.
o Can you view the site clearly without zooming and pinching at the screen?
o Does the website load quickly?
o Can you easily find your phone number and address? Can you easily tap on a phone number to call your business?
o Can you easily navigate around your website and locate information key to purchasing decisions?
If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, the chances are that you are losing business to your competitors who have already created a mobile phone friendly version of their website.
If your business is not providing a mobile-friendly experience for your customers, they’ll bounce off your website and go to a competitor whose website is easier to navigate and interact with.
If your company depends on its website enough that losing leads to competitors with a mobile-friendly website, would be a damaging blow, getting a mobile-friendly website should be very high up on your list of marketing and business development priorities.
To find out more about how a responsive mobile-friendly website can help your business, contact us on 020 7993 4477 or send us an email at info@futuraservices.co.uk