Go Mobile or Get Left Out

Our guest contributor for this edition of Perspective is Jeff Beyer, Founder and CEO of Big Rig Media a premier web developing and marketing firm based in Toluca Lake and La Quinta, California.  He and his talented staff have created a thriving online and print presence for retail, franchising, hospitality, entertainment, fashion, interior design, and multiple other professional service organizations across the United States.

 

Go Mobile or Get Left Out

Creating an accessible and convenient means to connect is essential to every business. In this day and age, that means mobile. And if your website isn’t mobile yet, consider these statistics:

• US mobile phone internet user penetration is 75 percent.
• 73 percent of mobile searches produce follow-up actions.
• 72 percent of consumers want mobile-friendly sites.
• Another 50 percent use smart TVs, smart watches and smart wristbands to search the internet!

Given the reality of these eye-opening figures, it’s clear that mobile is the platform your customers launch from when they seek products and services. Therefore, if you are a business owner, your very livelihood depends upon being visible to them when they want to find you.

How do you know if your site is mobile?

First things first, check how your site appears on devices at mobiletest.me. Make sure it is mobile friendly and does not looks and act clunky on a smartphone. Not only does it impact folks who already know your website, but Google penalizes for the faulty redirects, poor viewing, slow site-load speed and unplayable videos typical of mobile-incompatible websites.  This results in lowering or eliminating your search rankings and is a good way to get buried in Google abyss.

How do you make your website mobile friendly?

If you have a WordPress site, they offer some free plugins as do other vendors that will make your site more mobile friendly. However, the best way to do it is to create a mobile site using what’s called Responsive Design.

Responsive web design means that your site is constructed so that the content, images, structure and functionality remain the same on any device. When your site is accessed via a smartphone or other smaller screen device, the site retracts to fit on the smaller screen.

Google (with their 67% of the search market share) likes responsive design because it is easier to bot crawl a site coded with it and index / organize it for search engine results.

Not to mention, the last thing you want to do is frustrate visitors by slamming the front door in their face!  If your site is not device optimized, your visitor is viewing less than an optimal look, which could cause a quick, never to return, bounce off the site.

Conclusions

According to statista.com the number of smartphone US smartphone users by the end of 2016 is estimated to reach 207.2 million and 236.8 million by 2019. Finally, one last stat, this one from Shopify: 50.3% of ecommerce website traffic comes through a mobile device.

No matter what your business sector, going mobile can only help your enterprise, even if it means just to keep up with your competitors.