Does your website look good on mobile devices? If not, you’re losing customers. Mobile usage is increasing exponentially so optimizing for mobile needs to be a priority.
By the end of 2023, it is estimated that 4.3 billion people will have a smart phone – which, for perspective, is well over half of the earth’s current population. To address the needs of those 4.3 billion people, here are seven good reasons why you should optimize for mobile.
Google loves websites that optimize for mobile
Optimization has become a huge priority for Google, and they are currently beefing up their algorithm to make sure that websites optimize properly for mobile users. That means if you aren’t optimizing your website, it will be less likely to pop up on a Google search. Mobile-friendly websites rank higher in search results than non-mobile-friendly websites, so optimizing the website makes it easier for users to find in searches and can help drive traffic and sales or subscribers.
Gain Customers or Don’t Lose Customers
Customers have little patience when shopping with an unresponsive website. With hundreds of millions of people accessing the internet via their smartphones every single day, customers won’t have very much patience if your website isn’t easy to navigate on their phone. They will seek out a more user-friendly website with which to do business.
After all, it’s simply less convenient for someone “on the go” to stop what they are doing and use their computer than it is for them to whip out their phone and use that instead. The second that people get frustrated enough with your website, they will quickly switch over to one of your competitors.
Increase conversions
Website visitors who come from mobile devices convert more often. A website with a good optimization strategy is going to have some of the highest converting traffic coming from smartphones as opposed to desktop or laptop computers. In fact, some data indicates that people browsing from mobile devices have been shown to have higher purchasing intent than those on desktops or laptops.
Convey Your Message
Without optimized copy, information on pages may be too long and need horizontal scrolling; when this happens, users might just abandon the page rather than scrolling through text that seems never-ending.
Without optimization, important details on pages may be left out completely because they are hard to see or read on a mobile phone.
If your users can’t access information or complete tasks on your website by using their phones, the likelihood of them coming back to use it decreases tremendously. If your website is optimized for mobile devices, more people will be able to access the content anywhere and at any time. Mobile compatibility is not only about convenience anymore; it’s crucial for survival of websites in today’s connected age. You need an easy-to-navigate website that provides useful information directly from the source wherever and whenever users need it most.
Optimizing for mobile is cheaper than you think
Optimizing for mobile doesn’t mean that you have to build an entirely new website. There are lots of resources (e.g., Bootstrap, a mobile-first frontend web development tool) to help you create mobile optimized websites without having to spend too much money or time on the process at all. This makes optimizing for mobile super affordable in any budget.
Improve the UX
Desktop ads don’t work on mobile. Most people who browse the internet with their smartphone go to a website not expecting to see an advertisement that has been designed for a desktop computer. This annoys the user and disrupts their experience.
The average webpage takes over twice as long when loaded onto a mobile device when compared to being loaded onto a laptop/desktop. These few extra seconds add up quickly when multiplied by thousands of visits per day and will drive away users from your brand even faster than they already are if you don’t optimize your website.
Getting page views is great but keeping people to get pageviews and visitors from mobile devices means optimizing your website for them. The average user will spend over twice as long (six minutes vs three minutes) on a website that loads quickly and provides an experience with which they feel comfortable.
ads on mobile are more frequently clicked
Two studies show the kinds of differences between ads viewed through mobile and ads viewed through desktop computers: Ads placed in rich media banners that are served to desktops were clicked on .63 percent of the time, while ads in the same place that are served to mobile devices were clicked on 2.96 percent of the time and banner ads served to desktops command an average click-through rate (CTR) of 0.88%. When served to mobile devices, banner ad CTRs jumped to 4.64%.
Take Action
Today more than ever, consumers are embracing mobile devices for both work and pleasure. After all, you can find almost anything online. As a business owner or marketing manager, it is important to optimize your website for mobile devices so that you can continue to captivate your consumer base everywhere they go
