8 reasons why you should care about having a mobile friendly website

 

A mobile friendly website will benefit you in many ways. You’ve heard it before. However, when you run a startup you and your developing team might be very focused on launching the product, engaging new customers and building up a brand, that you forget about it. Also, when you have a small business that has been running for years, your daily activities are so overwhelming that you don’t think about it.

This is why I wanted to share the 8 reasons why you should optimise your website for mobile.

1. More people access the internet on mobile

In 2016 mobile became the primary internet access device, overtaking the desktop. Google Webmasters say that 94% of people in the USA use their smartphones to search for local information. And the statistics are not much different in the rest of the world. In many developing countries people have a mobile phone before they have a computer.

This means, it’s very likely that your existing customers will go on your website from their smartphones. Also, if you want to attract more visitors, you better offer them a mobile friendly website.

2. People behave differently on mobile

The same people have different behaviours when accessing the internet from their phones than from desktop.

First of all, the reduced size of their screens make them feel more attracted to short videos and images as opposed to text. Think at Instagram, which has based its success on people accessing and sharing images on mobile.

This means that if you care about mobile optimization, you should design a website that prioritizes this type of content.

3. Your sales will increase

Research shows that people tend to spend more money on mobile. Especially on smaller and more frequent purchases. So, if you sell small goodies on your website, it’s really worthy for you to give your users a smooth experience.

Check your website’s speed because people get frustrated and are 5 times more likely to leave a page if it loads in more than 3 seconds. They would also abandon the purchase when the shopping cart is not optimized for mobile.

But even if you don’t sell anything on your website, by giving your users a better experience, they will know you better and be more likely to buy your product or service. For instance, if you are a beauty salon and want people to book their appointments online, make sure you make it easy for them.

mobile friendly website

4. Your SEO ranking will improve

Google has started rewarding mobile optimized websites already a couple of years ago. Its algorithm is able to check mobile responsiveness and penalize the websites that perform poorly.

There is also a very simple reason why a mobile friendly website will help you in your ranking: if you give all those people accessing on mobile a smooth and pleasant experience, they might spend more time on your website. This means that your bouncing rate will decrease. Google will see it as if people were more engaged on your site and, therefore, reward you.

5. People often switch devices

Nowadays, 90% of the customer journeys happen on multiple screens. People might find out about something on their phones, maybe when they are bored on their way to work. They would then go back to complete the purchase or action on another device later. So, it is very likely that your customers will access your website from their phones at a certain point.

Make sure you give them the best possible experience regardless from where they navigate your content.

mobile friendly website

6. Mobile landing pages work differently

A landing page is the first content people access when visiting your website. It’s your one shot to providing a good experience that will make people convert and return to you.

As we said, people behave differently when on mobile and this applies also to your landing page. First of all, phone screens are smaller and require a different design, where users don’t need to zoom or pinch the page. They want to be able to read the entire content smoothly.

Remember to design all the call to action buttons and links with the right size and margins to avoid errors. Also, make sure that your phone numbers are text and not image to allow people making calls directly.

7. Social media traffic happens mostly on mobile

Nowadays, people use their social media mostly on their phones. Certain very popular networks such as Instagram and Snapchat are almost for mobile use only.

So, if you are active on social media, your content will very likely refer to your website. This means that most of your site visitors coming from social media are on their phones.

If your website is not responsive for mobile, you are wasting your money and time on social media. But if you make the effort, you will take full advantage of this incredible tool.

8. A good and optimised mobile website will differentiate your brand

If you didn’t focus all your efforts on creating a mobile website don’t worry, you are not alone. According to a recent survey by Yodle, 52% of small businesses websites are mobile-friendly. In addition, only half of them are actually efficient and good.

This means that statistically some of your competitors might not have thought about it yet. If this is the case, you might have found a new incredible competitive advantage. You can be the one giving a better experience.

I think this is especially true for startups. You are creating a new product that you are introducing to the market, so you have to show the value and create your customer base. With a poor mobile website, you might miss some great opportunities. The effort it took you until now is probably very big, so why wasting it in such small details?

mobile friendly website

So, what can you do now to get a mobile friendly website?

Now that you know why you should care about a mobile responsive website, what can you do?

First of all, run a test to see how your website is performing. Google offers the Mobile Friendly test for free here. They would also give you some tips on how to improve.

After that, if the performance is poor, go and talk to your developer. Do whatever it takes and optimise your website. It’s worth the investment and the effort!