By Yogesh Prajapati on Nov 20, 2022
Most business owners today realize that their website is their calling card. They understand they must lead customers where they want to them to go and keep their content updated. But sometimes they do not pay enough attention to ensuring they have a mobile-friendly website . This is a mistake. Let’s see why.
Be aware that these days, Google primarily indexes the mobile versions of websites for search result rankings. Google isn’t ranking websites that are desktop-only at all. So, if you want to rank in Google search results, your mobile website better be in tip-top shape.
The reason Google is emphasizing mobile sites is because today the majority of people access the Internet through smartphones and other mobile devices such as tablets. Last year, 57% of Internet traffic was from mobile phones. By 2025, 73% of Internet users will be accessing the Internet only from mobile devices. Needless to say, most Google searches are also done on mobile devices.
If it’s not enough for you that most Internet users are accessing the Internet on mobile devices today or that Google uses your mobile site to rank for search results, then consider the impact of social media. People mostly use social media from their phones or tablets rather than desktop computers. When people share information about your site on social media, readers are likely to click through to your mobile site. Once they get there, they expect a good customer experience.
Your customers are constantly changing the devices they use. They switch easily from desktops to laptops to tablets to smartphones. They expect their experiences to remain seamless as they move from one device to the next. They want to find information easily without battling your website’s interface. They don’t want to scroll horizontally to see an entire page. They don’t want to squint to read your site. They don’t want content and images to be cut off.
The mobile version of your site is not going to exactly mirror your desktop site. For example, the user may need to scroll down to see some content that appears on one screen on their desktop. But no matter what device they use, your audience needs to be able to easily navigate, find information and read your site.
Enabling users to navigate, find and view information on a small screen is a challenge when developing a mobile-friendly website. If you just shrink a desktop site, users may not be able to read the small text or see the small images. The entire site may look chaotic. Needless to say, Google is not going to rank a site like that in search results. Fortunately, there are solutions.
When you work with a web developer, you will want to check that important issues that make a website mobile-friendly are addressed. Here are some of those issues.
There are a few different ways that developers can deal with varying screen sizes among devices, but the easiest to implement and maintain, and the one recommended by Google is Responsive Web Design. It will automatically adapt your site according to screen size. Your URL remains the same as does your HTML code. To learn more, see Responsive Web Design Basics.
Many desktop sites have elaborate navigation with many submenus. Extensive navigation choices are going to be almost unintelligible on a smartphone if not done right. Your developer needs to give a lot of thought to how your navigation will appear on your mobile site. As just a starting point, “hamburger menus,” those menus that are three lines and open on a click, are a common solution that appear these days on mobile sites.
You need your web developer to do everything possible to help your customers on their journey when developing a mobile-friendly website. For an ecommerce site, that ends up with a purchase. For other sites, that may end up with a phone call. Whatever your ultimate goal, your website must provide the information your customers need when and where they want it in order to generate conversions. For example, put a link to shipping information on the shopping cart page. Don’t make customers search your website for it.
Another way to make your customers’ lives easier is to put AI chatbots on every version of your site. They enable customers to get quick answers from anywhere on your site 24/7.
Good web developers do not just guess at how to present and fix a mobile site. There are standard issues they must check.
You’re busy running your business. But if you only work in your business and never on your business, your competition will start pulling ahead. Bring in Umbrella Local Marketing Experts to help. They have the technical solutions and the expertise to optimize your website and motivate your customers to convert.
Contact Umbrella for a free consultation specific to your business needs.
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