Only a decade ago many businesses caught wind of a new marketing sensation that helped propel many of them to the next level of success. Today, a website is critical for businesses to increase their brand awareness, share information, and provide a platform for sales. Of course, today it’s also important to make sure your website is mobile friendly. Here’s a closer look at the top seven reasons to optimize your website for mobile devices.
Just About Everyone Uses Mobile Devices
Image via Flickr by clasesdeperiodismo
According to the Pew Research Center, nearly 90 percent of American adults use a mobile phone on a regular basis, many of which are 4G capable smartphones that are powered through reliable networks like T-Mobile. About 32 percent of Americans use an e-reader, while 42 percent use a tablet. Basically, this means almost the entire adult population in America uses a mobile device each day. It’s extremely important that your website be easy to view and navigate on mobile gadgets, including cell phones, tablets, e-readers, iPods, and more.
Enhanced User Experience
When users visit your site on their mobile devices, they expect the site to be easy to view. If they find it difficult to view or navigate, they will likely look elsewhere online for the information, services, or products they are searching for. When this happens, you’ll lose a potential customer and a transaction.
Google Loves Sites that Are Mobile Friendly
Did you know that Google wants your site to be mobile friendly? In fact, you’ll enjoy higher ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) when your site has been optimized for mobile devices. If that isn’t enough encouragement, Google now cracks down on sites that aren’t mobile friendly. The number one search engine in the world sent mass emails to webmasters suggesting they improve the responsiveness of their sites. A responsive site conforms to the mobile device it is being viewed on, which is why Google highly recommends responsive design.
People Prefer Using Their Smartphones
Although most American households have at least one computer with Internet access, many people still prefer to surf the web using their mobile devices. About 7 percent of them completely rely on their smartphones for access to the Internet, and this number only appears to be rising.
Your Site Will Load Faster
What happens when a person searches for a site and after clicking on the URL the site takes forever to load? Most people will choose to click away from the site and search for a different one with faster load speeds. Some users may have no option but to go to a different site because a site that has not been optimized for mobile devices sometimes won’t be usable on smartphones or tablets.
Improved Search Engine Optimization
Whether you want to admit it or not, search engine optimization largely influences the search engine results page ranking that your website will enjoy. If for some reason your site cannot be updated to be mobile friendly, consider building a separate site that users are directed to when searching for your site on a mobile device.
Great Way to Stay Ahead of the Competition
Even though Google has made it extremely clear that all websites need to be mobile friendly, about 68 percent of companies don’t have a website optimized for mobile purposes. This means you can quickly and easily jump ahead of your competition by jumping on the mobile friendly website bandwagon now. The sooner your site is mobile friendly, the sooner you’ll be able to stay ahead of your competitors.
During your next business meeting with your web developer, make sure to discuss the possibility of optimizing your site for mobile purposes. If you think a mobile site isn’t something to worry about, you’ll definitely want to think again. For e-commerce sites that bring in about $100,000 a day but are not mobile friendly, a short one-second delay in load time can lead to a profit loss of $2.5 million each year. This makes it all the more important that your site be mobile friendly as soon as possible.