Mobile Optimized Site – Why Your Business Needs One

In 2018, 58% of site visits were from mobile devices. In context, this makes perfect sense. Even the most technologically challenged of us spend an average 1-4 hours a day on our smartphones. Whether you are looking up the movie you want to see tonight, or the directions to your favorite restaurant, or simply checking up on the funniest memes on social networks- online consumption is continuing to shift to a more mobile focus. Simply creating a visually captivating and content-filled website doesn't cut it in 2020, you need to make sure your business has a mobile optimized site.

Mobile experience has become the number one touchpoint for brands and consumers who are exploring. A poor mobile experience can lower brand positioning and credibility in a consumer’s mind. However, a good mobile experience may encourage them to look further into the brand immediately, or later when they are thinking of purchasing, through their desktop website and looking deeper into the provided content.

Things that cause a poor mobile experience include:

1. Formatting discrepancies
2. Image quality or formatting
3. Searching functions that don’t match native phone commands
4. Text forms that are too complex and hard to work
5. Lack of direction

What does this mean for your site now?

Having carousels or accordion styled content are great and really make consumers want to look through your information and offerings. However, these formats don’t always translate to mobile use. Make sure any special features are adjusted to different scrolling features on the leading smartphones. For example, a left tap may bring the user to the previous page rather than tapping through your content.

Know that with your mobile version, less is more.

Consumers who use their desktops intend to do more “complicated” tasks on them. Therefore, having paragraphs of content isn’t out of the ordinary for desktop websites- and it helps boost SEO. However, on phones or tablets, all content shows up much smaller and more difficult to get through. Most mobile users are searching just to “see what’s out there”. They want to know the quick facts and benefits, offers, and easy-to-submit forms that don’t take more than 5 minutes to complete. A mobile optimized site can also help with diminishing attention spans.

When building a website or even updating your current one, always clear your history and try it on a phone and tablet. Updates should always be considered for the mobile platform as well. For more help building or updating your website, let the Big Marlin Group experts ensure that your website is optimized for every device.