Mobile devices are steadily gaining popularity, as they have been consistently for the past decade. This push towards convenience and hand-held browsing changes the way that your customers are looking for you and viewing your website. While desktop internet surfing is still a long way away from being nonexistent, more and more individuals are solely accessing the world wide web from their smartphones. In fact, it is estimated that by 2025, roughly 73% of internet users will access it using these devices alone. With the future headed in such a portable direction, it’s important that your website is mobile-friendly. Let’s take a look at what this means, why it’s so important, and how to achieve this.

WHAT?

You may be thinking, “My website is already online, how much more accessible can I get?” It’s not a bad question, however, simply having an existing website is no longer enough. Your site must also be mobile-friendly, meaning that when your customers access your website from a mobile device, they should have the same experience and ease-of-use as if they were accessing it on a desktop. Considering that the screen size is tremendously smaller, a mobile-friendly website will have dynamic, responsive elements to make navigation easier, text more legible, and clickable elements appropriately proportioned.

WHY?

Now that we have briefly gone over what a mobile-friendly website is, let’s discuss why it is so important to your company’s success. The reasoning behind the need for this mobile-optimized design is two-pronged.

On one hand, your customers require a user-friendly experience and if this is not handed to them, they are likely to look elsewhere for the products and services you provide. Almost half (43%) of potential clients will not return to your mobile site if they experience slow loading times. Around 40% of your customers will jump ship and move on to a competitor if their experience with your mobile site is less than satisfactory. This could lead to missing out on a tremendous amount of conversions.

On the other hand, a mobile-friendly website is prioritized in search results by Google. In fact, Google has recently moved to base their algorithms on the mobile version of your site, so if your site is not optimized for this viewing method, you could be penalized, pushing your site further down the search results, making it harder for potential customers to find your company.

HOW?

Alright, so we have you convinced that your website needs to be mobile-friendly. How do you go about accomplishing this? There are some important factors to keep in mind as you go about site optimization.

RESPONSIVE ELEMENTS

Responsive design elements will automatically resize themselves to appear proportionately on whatever device is being utilized to access your site. This eliminates the need to zoom in or out on previously desktop-sized elements.

FAST LOAD TIMES

On both desktop and mobile sites, you should aim to have your content load in 1-2 seconds. When it takes your website longer than 3 seconds to load, you could be losing out on over half of your potential clients.

STREAMLINE

Your content should be organized in a manner that makes sense, and the navigation should be easy to find your way around, with clickable elements designed to appeal to the smartphone crowd.

SIZING

On mobile phones, text should be large and legible. Be careful with your font choices, sticking with mainly sans serif styles, and ensuring that no zooming is required to read your content. Also keep in mind picture sizes. If a photo is too large on your mobile site, it will require excessive scrolling to get past it, however, if it is too small, viewers will not be able to decipher what you are trying to display.

FORMS

If your business operates with contact forms, be sure to simplify the amount of information required for mobile viewers. Keeping forms concise makes it more likely that clients will fill them out.

CLICKABLE CALL TO ACTION

Whether your intention is to have customers call your company, send an email, sign up for something, or elsewise, make sure that your call to action is clickable. If your clients have to manually copy your phone number or type it into their dialpad, they are less likely to reach out, and more likely to move on to the next website.

Want to make your website mobile-friendly, but aren’t sure where to start? Contact our team of website design experts to see what we can do for you.