Your Customers Expect You to Provide a Mobile Friendly Site
Increasingly, your customers are not sitting front of desktops or laptops. Instead, they’re on the go, and they’re accessing your website from their mobile devices. Your must have a mobile friendly site.
What does that mean for you? If you don’t give customers what they want (easy visibility and navigation so they can browse and shop while mobile), they’ll go someplace else.
So how do you go about creating a mobile-friendly site? Don’t try to simply “tweak” your existing website to try to make it so. Traditional websites don’t display well on mobile phones.
Mobile phones have smaller displays and will often distort visuals on regular websites. Pare your mobile friendly website down to just essential features, with content that includes links to secondary information pages. You should also enlarge interface elements for easy touchscreen navigation.
That doesn’t mean you should ignore those customers who still use desktops and laptops, though. They still account for a significant portion of your customer base and new prospects.
Change Your Standard Website to a Responsive Website
Instead, opt for a responsive website. A responsive website recognizes the device being used (laptop, PC, tablet, smartphone, etc.) and will resize itself accordingly for optimal viewing. You’ll be able to accommodate mobile and PC/laptop users alike.
Don’t ignore your customers, because your competition will be only too happy to serve them. “Do I need a mobile friendly website?” Yes, because customers are searching and shopping on mobile devices in increasing numbers.
Without a Mobile Friendly Website, Google Will Penalize You
It’s true, and there’s a reason for that. Google recognizes that you don’t need a computer to surf the Internet. Many sites, however, still use content, images, and navigation structures that just don’t work well on mobile devices.
Users can only see those websites properly using a desktop or laptop monitor or screen, and smartphone browsers end up with a very unsatisfying user experience.
Why Google cares. Because if a particular website isn’t mobile friendly, Google will recognize that and be less likely to display it as a legitimate search result.
That makes sense, since Google wouldn’t be doing its job if half the results displayed were useless to mobile users. Google’s goal is to increase search traffic, including mobile search traffic, and you can use that to your benefit by jumping on board.
So when you’re asked, “Do I need a mobile friendly website?” answer “yes.” It will help your organic search results.
You’ll Lose Business (If You Haven’t Already)
You’ve probably already seen a decline in business if you still use only a standard website. If not, go mobile friendly before you do. Most aren’t yet completely ditching their desktops or laptops for their mobile devices, but an increasing number are.
