Mobile Friendly

“You have to be where your customers are.”

That phrase used to mean making sure you had a store in high traffic areas such as malls, or placing your billboard strategically close to a major highway.  It meant advertising during popular TV shows and in high profile magazines.  In the 21st century, your website is your store, your TV advertisement, your billboard and your magazine ad all rolled into one.  Being where your customers are now often means being online (but don’t discount offline strategies too).  Increasingly, they’re wherever their Smartphone or tablet is.

StatCounter, a Dublin-based web analytics company, reported that in December of 2013, the amount of worldwide Internet traffic from mobile users topped 20 percent for the first time.  As the capacities of mobile devices continue to expand, that number will likely increase. 

As online usage habits change, many companies are lagging behind in making their sites mobile friendly, much to the annoyance of Smartphone and tablet users.

In a 2012 survey of 1,100 U.S. adults conducted by market research firms Sterling Research and Smith Geiger, two in three Smartphone users say a mobile-friendly website makes them more likely to buy a company’s product or service.  And 61 percent said that if they don’t quickly find what they’re looking for, they’ll click away to another site.  Half indicate that even if they like a business, they’ll use its site less often if it doesn’t work well on their Smartphone.

Making your website mobile friendly doesn’t have to mean a complete overhaul.  Many times a simple redesign is all that is needed. 

• Make the site’s menus easier and simpler to navigate.  Mobile visitors will be using a touch screen rather than mouse or keyboard. 
• Since the screens on mobile devices are smaller, avoid using hard to read fonts.  
• Make your online forms simple since most mobile devices weren’t designed with extensive  typing in mind. 
• Avoid using large images or graphics whenever possible.  The longer your site takes to load, the more likely your visitors will go somewhere else. 
• Talk to a website development professional to gain insights about what you need done to get an effective, ‘responsive’ site.

With a relatively few simple steps, you can often make your site friendly and easy to use whether your potential customer is sitting in an office in front of a traditional desktop or on the go with their Smartphone in hand.