If your business doesn't have a mobile-friendly website, unfortunately there isn't an app for that, and it's costing you money. With the number of smartphone and mobile tablet devices growing exponentially, consumer behavior in accessing the Internet has shifted.
According to CNN Money, January of 2014 marked the first time Americans accessed the Internet more with tablet apps and smartphones instead of PCs. As a result, your consumers are using mobile devices to browse your website. Is your website mobile-friendly?
Everyone's Doing It
Of the 163.2 million smartphone owners in the U.S., 96 percent of them use their device to research products and services based on Google and Our Mobile Planet's research. Clearly, it's not just the hipsters using the mobile web -- practically everyone is. If your website isn't mobile-friendly, you may already be on the outside looking in. Google provides the following statistics about the costs of your website being unfriendly to mobile devices.
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50 percent of the customers who like your business will become less interested because you don't have a mobile-friendly website.
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52 percent of users say a poor mobile experience is why they’re less likely to engage with a brand.
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61 percent of users refuse to wait and scour a website for what they’re looking for. Instead, they’ll swiftly move on to another site.
Statistics Show Internet Usage Is On The Move
While the future is undoubtedly about mobile access, the following statistics from InMobi's 2014 Mobile Media Consumption Report strongly suggest the future is now.
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Approximately 70 percent of global consumers have made purchases via their mobile device in the last year.
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60 percent of global consumers rely on the mobile web as their primary or only way for accessing the Internet.
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For down times or in-between times, 81 percent of the respondents use mobile web while lying in bed, and 83 percent use it while waiting for something.
Advertising's Moving Too
In the past, radio, TV, and other traditional advertising mediums were key in your marketing mix. Today, with an impressive 87 percent of mobile web users noticing mobile ads, 61 percent of mobile web users are as comfortable with mobile advertising as they are with the previously mentioned mediums. Clearly, the tornado of mobile technology has shifted consumer behavior. In its trail, consumers want to see it clearly, and have become comfortable seeing it in their handheld devices.
How Can I Make A More Mobile-Friendly Site?
Mobile-friendly sites are sites optimized to display and function on small mobile devices in the same manner as they would on a desktop. Because of the small screen size, navigation, speed, lack of Java, size of messages, broken pages, and several other factors of mobile devices, your website may not be accessible or legible on mobile devices.
To solve this problem, you can take the following steps to ensure your website is mobile-friendly.
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Simplify your site design.
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Create a separate mobile version of your site.
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Build your site for all future devices with either adaptive or responsive designs.
Is your website optimized to attract and retain users?
