The future of the web lies with mobile devices such as smart phones and iPads. Now is the time for your business to go mobile as that future rapidly becomes the present. If you want to retain customers and reach new ones, establishing your company on the mobile web with a mobile friendly website is essential.
Why Going Mobile Is A Must:
1. Traditional websites are hard to read and navigate on mobile devices. For many first time users accessing the web on a smart phone is a disappointing experience. By making your business mobile the visitor and customer will enjoy the experience of pages that are as easily read and navigated as a website is on a PC.
This will attract more business especially when you consider that a mobile user ‘on the go’ has less time to browse the competition. Having the world at your fingertips is a powerful feeling and a good mobile site will enhance this feeling and inspire customer loyalty. If you don’t have a mobile site and the customer’s experience of your traditional site on the mobile web is poor, he/she will make a mental note not to return to your site.
2. Mobile sites get higher rankings from search engines on mobile devices while traditional sites get pushed down the list. This is important as it helps you to establish your presence on the mobile web.
3. Mobile websites load at a much faster pace on mobile devices than traditional ones. In the information age there is so much access to info that it is easy to navigate away from a site that is taking a long time to load and so the site loses potential customers.
4. If you run a local business it is vital that you go mobile as more and more smart phone users are searching for local information on their devices such as: tradesmen, restaurants, hotels and travel agents. Mobile phone web searches are the largest growth area on the internet.
For businesses that want to go mobile there are two options: a regular mobile website and a responsive website. A regular mobile site simply means the creation of one or more separate mobile sites built from scratch, each suitable for a particular device, whereas responsive web design makes a single website usable across the whole range of mobile devices and tablets as well as PCs.
The visitors device (PC, tablet of smart phone) informs a responsive website which kind of device it is and the website adapts its layout and appearance accordingly. Responsive web design is now the more popular option.
Some Of The Benefits Of Responsive Design Are:
1. It is easier to update a responsive design site, which increases your chances of making the first page of a search engine’s listings.
2. If you already have a site there is no need to build a separate responsive site from scratch. A designer can simply replace your existing site with a responsive one.
3. The user experience is more consistent on a responsive site as there is no need for redirection and a unified design approach means a more consistent look and feel.
4. The responsive approach is less time consuming as you only need to maintain a single website instead of additional sites which is the old mobile approach. It will save you time when editing a page on your site as a modern CMS will allow you to do this and have it reflected in your smart phone: they are represented as the one page.
5. Customers need to be able to access your content on different devices as they make buying decisions over a number of visits to your site. A responsive site will facilitate this buying process habit.
6. Responsive design sites are recognised by Google as industry best practice.
As mobile phone and tablet usage explodes worldwide, the mobile web is rapidly becoming the norm for browsing, searching and making online purchases. We have never been so connected and the world has never been so small.
By making the leap and going mobile, businesses can get in there ahead of the competition and reap the benefits of this increasing connectedness.
Do you need a mobile web site? If you are an online business and keen to win more customers the answer is a resounding yes. Establishing your business on the mobile web with a powerful mobile site will increase visitors to your site and help turn them into customers.
