“Mobile-geddon” Is Here To Stay… Are You On Board?
In 2016, the fact is if you aren’t optimized for mobile devices then you are ultimately losing sales. Research confirms that 57 percent of mobile users will abandon your website if it takes more than 3 or 4 seconds to load and a full one-third will abandon a buying transaction if the business website shopping cart isn’t optimized for mobile devices.
Considering that we all know how important a website is for any small, local business it seems only natural to take the effort to make certain the website is mobile friendly. It often shocks me that so many websites are still not optimized for mobile users. I wonder if they think Smartphones are some sort of fad that won’t last..? Here are five reasons that local businesses must have a mobile responsive and optimized website:
Mobile Users are Different From Desktop Users
Those on smartphones and tablets have different objectives than desktop users and typically this means they want information in quick, easily digestible bites. Many consumers report that their mobile purchases are often impulse buys and statistics show repeatedly show that smartphone buyers spend more money per purchase than desktop customers. This dramatizes the necessity of optimizing your website for mobile users so that you can match a visitor’s needs in the context of how they will most likely be browsing your website. By making the path to purchase or inquiry straight forward and intuitive you can more completely align with mobile users who need information rapidly to make decisions on the fly.
Mobile Gets Traffic
Fully one-half (and growing) of global web searches are conducted on a mobile device by over a billion users worldwide. Mobile websites are equally as important, if not more so, than desktop websites. Multiple sources report that smartphone and tablet users search by smartphone while multitasking (watching TV, commuting to work, etc) and even while using a desktop computer. With the numerous releases of mobile-centric updates, Google made clear that the future of search is mobile and websites that aren’t usable on handheld devices will see their search rank suffer for it.
Better Brand Engagement
People seem to like your brand more when you offer a great mobile experience and they’re more likely to come back to your site later from a desktop. Over 90 percent of users report moving between devices, or “multi-screening”, to accomplish a task. When your mobile website is optimized for functionality and consistency it develops trust and affinity with users. On the other hand if your mobile website is difficult to navigate by smartphone, prospects and consumers are more likely to go to your competition than to visit you on a desktop computer. If you can’t provide what they need when they need it you may have lost the opportunity for the sale and risk losing a customer permanently to a competitor.
Increased Conversions
Traditional, non-responsive desktop websites in mobile browsers are not effective at converting visitors into buyers. Calls to action (CTAs) are often obscured, links are too small and difficult to click and contact pages are buried in menus that are awkward on smaller devices. Mobile consumers have little patience for an unwieldy website and one-third of them will leave a transaction if the site isn’t optimized for mobile. To make the most of your mobile web presence, Calls-To-Action should be clear and easy to click and contact information should be one of the first things visitors see. A full 80 percent of those surveyed admit that mobile purchases are impulse-driven and that they’re more likely to purchase from and interact with a brand that offers an engaging mobile experience.
Reduce Your Bounce Rate
Content that looks great on a desktop might be unreadable on a smartphone or tablet. Visitors won’t hang around long on your site if they have to pinch and zoom or squint at illegible type, or worse yet if it runs flash or anything that requires add-ons to display in a browser. If your website isn’t optimized professionally for mobile devices then your bounce rate on mobile devices is going to be extremely high. By providing mobile visitors with an acceptable and intuitive user experience you will obviously engage visitors longer and drive more of them to purchase or enquire.
Finally, Here’s a Mobile Health Check: Pick up your smartphone and go to your website. Ask yourself these questions:
• Does my site load in less than three seconds? • Does it draw your eye to your key selling points or message? • Is my web content easy to read? • Is it easy to navigate? • Is it easy to recognize and activate the call to action? • Does it provide a good mobile user experience? • Is it a website you would spend time if it was not your own?
If you mostly answered “no”, then it’s time to optimize your mobile site and capture the traffic and sales you’ve been missing out on. Call us today and let us help you capture more traffic now.
