If you build it, they will come. Not true with your website. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you could get dinged by Google in search results, making it more difficult for anyone to find your site. Once they do find your site, it needs to display the information more and more for visitors using mobile devices – smartphones and tablets – to search and browse online. Did you know that over half (59%) of web traffic is now on smartphones and tablets?
Mobile web viewing is rapidly increasing (it was only 33% in 2014), and is only going to grow from here. This is why you must have a website that adapts to the device the end-user is using and displays correctly on that device. You’ll lose visitors if your site is clunky, has hard to view text, difficult navigation or clickable buttons that are difficult to access, half-displayed cut-off pictures, or takes too long to load.
What Is Mobile Responsive Design?
Mobile responsive sites are websites that automatically respond and change the layout and content based on the size of screen it’s on. It looks good on iPhones and iPads, and on Android smartphones and tablets, as well as desktops and laptops.
It has these features:
- Loads fast. Slow load times cause people to leave your site.
- Easy to read. This means font size and images that automatically adjust to fit.
- Easy to navigate. Design of the layout, scrolling, and especially the navigation must be easy to access on mobile.
And avoids these features:
- No Flash. Flash isn’t only some phones (no Apple products). Use HTML5 instead.
- No Pop-ups. Often difficult and frustrating to on a mobile device, causing people to leave.
More and More People Search and Browse on Mobile Devices
The concept of mobile responsive is no longer optional, or only for select industries. As technology usage blurs lines between work and home life, people expect a consumer experience everywhere. It’s mandatory to meet the expectation for a growing number of internet users who now consider smartphones and tablets essential to their daily lives. Your website should make it as easy as possible for your customers to access your content on their mobile devices.
- 91% of mobile users say that access to content is very important. (Wolfgang Jaegel)
- 83% of mobile users say that a seamless experience across all devices (desktop, mobile, tablet) is very important. (Wolfgang Jaegel)
- 57% of users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site. (CMS Report)
There are more people getting online through their phones now than through their desktop or laptop, and mobile devices account for 71% of people’s time online now.
There is no question, if you want to be where your customers are, you need to be optimized for mobile and that means smartphones and tablets. Is your website mobile-user friendly, or does it say “I’m stuck in 2004?”?
Optimizing your site for search, and Avoiding being penalized in search on Google
Google began heavily favoring mobile-friendly websites in April 2015 when they updated their search algorithm, and even more so again with another update in March 2016. This is critically important not only because Google is by far the most used search engine in the world (almost 80%), but also because there are more Google search queries on smartphones than on desktop computers. Google isn’t going back. Having a mobile friendly site will only become even more important than it already. So if you don’t want your search rankings to suffer, you must prioritize your sites mobile experience now.
Need help?
We’d love to help. We’ve helped lots of people make mobile-friendly sites. Our work is based on your needs, tailor-customized for you.