Is Web Design Important on a Mobile Phone?

There are statistics all over the Internet on just how much the mobile web has grown in recent years. There are even numbers on how often smartphone users go to the bathroom with their trusted handheld device. Maybe that particular statistic isn’t important, and certainly, you can’t pay attention to every single stat that’s out there. Small business owners are busy, and only have so much time to dedicate to looking at various numbers and studies. But you’ll certainly want to pay attention to the main ones.

In general, however, if you’ve yet to be sold on the idea that it’s important to have a mobile-friendly website, you’re just short on information. A mobile-friendly site displays your website on mobile devices such as a smartphone or tablet. For your website to do this, it needs to be what is termed “responsive”, which just means that it should respond to any size of screen in such a way that it looks like it was specifically designed for that device. For example, images scale correctly on mobile devices when a website has been given a responsive design. Essentially, your website needs to look and function just as well on a smaller screen as it does on a larger one. And it needs to do sooner rather than later.

But Why Should I Get One?

If you believe that the majority of your customers aren’t looking at your site on their mobile device, you should review the available stats that will likely tell you a different story. You can even find how many people are viewing your site on a mobile device by reviewing your Analytics.

Also, failing to apply the latest web standards to your website will have a negative impact on your search engine rankings. Even in the early 2010’s, it was rumored that Google had been prioritizing sites that were built to accommodate both mobile and desktop visitors, and not just desktop. In 2015, they made it official that it was a valid factor when it came to how websites were ranked. So making your website mobile-friendly has been important for some time now.

One aspect that Google perceived to be important was speed. So your site’s mobile speed score is certainly something you’ll want to pay attention to. Yes, it isn’t purely your design, but also the performance of your site that matters to Google.

In A Customer’s Shoes

Imagine the last time you viewed a website on a mobile device that wasn’t mobile-friendly. Maybe you were out and about, looking for a restaurant to dine at. Then you came across the site of a particular venue, only to have to pinch and zoom on every part of the homepage just to read what it says. And if you have large fingers, you might just have ended up clicking on the wrong link.

Many mobile users who know that a certain website isn’t mobile-friendly won’t bother accessing it from their mobile device, which could affect you if they’re out and about and have no access to a desktop or laptop computer. And it’s easy to understand why they wouldn’t. The likelihood is that they can go and search for your competition and find multiple sites that are mobile-friendly. By having a mobile-friendly website, you’ll ensure that you at least have an advantage over any competitors that don’t.

Having a mobile-friendly site is even more of a bigger issue when you consider the world of online shopping. Online shoppers have begun to come around to the idea of browsing and shopping online on their mobile devices.

So you should look to remove any difficulties for someone to access your site if they’re looking to buy. Online shops already have a number of problems as it is when it comes to conversion rates. So you don’t want to make it any more difficult than it needs to be. The shopping experience needs to be made as straightforward and as accessible as possible.  Also be sure to get ecommerce website design help as well.

Final Note

Today’s interactive marketing culture dictates that for a business to be successful, it needs to be passionate when it comes to understanding their prospects. Building strong relationships and creating more and more touch points for your business to engage with your customers is important. Right now, these customers are willing to buy with their mobile device in hand. So you need to be in a position where you can give them what they want.

So make sure you don’t alienate your prospects and lose rankings in the search engines by ensuring that your website works as well on a mobile device as it does on a desktop.