Is Your Business Mobile-Ready?

Written by Carl Hartman of www.drmwebgroup.com
Mobile Website Designer, Online Marketing Solutions Consultant.

In this brief article, I will explain how to get your business mobile ready and why it is so important for you to do so.

Make Sure Your Website is Mobile-Friendly

The first thing you'll want to do as a business owner is check to see if your website is mobile friendly. Unfortunately, I know of several people who hired website designers to build their company website. They were told their website was mobile ready but in fact, the websites were not mobile ready.

Let's be clear, just about any website can show up on a mobile device but that doesn't mean the website is mobile ready. Many of the websites I see are desktop websites that simply shrink to fit the smaller, mobile screen. This is unacceptable in today's mobile world.

Responsive Desktop Website

There are two ways to have a truly mobile friendly website. The first is going with a responsive desktop website.

This option allows you to have a single website that will automatically adjust to a smaller screen and still be vary functional. You should not need to expand the screen or scroll around to get the complete website on your smart phone. The website should be laid out very nicely whether your viewing it on a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smart phone. The text and all hyperlinks should be large enough to read without manually making adjustments with your fingers.

Mobile Optimized Website

The second option is to have a desktop website and a separate mobile optimized website. A mobile optimized website is a website designed and built specifically for mobile devices. It will not look very good on a desktop so you will actually have two websites. When someone enters your company's URL on their desktop or laptop, they will get your desktop website. When they access that same URL on their smart phone, they will be redirected to the custom built mobile website.

The custom built, mobile optimized website has many advantages for your customers. First, you can have “tap to call” and “tap to map” features. Studies show that 61% of consumers call a business when they find that business on a mobile device. “Tap-to-call” makes it extremely easy for people to call your company while they are “on the move”.

“Tap to map” is another great feature that mobile consumers love. With a simple click they can bring up a map to see your location. Most desktop and responsive websites do not offer these features.

If you are concerned about uniformity, custom built mobile sites can use your current logo and colors to match your desktop website.

Another concern you may have is the expense of having two websites. Of course with a responsive website this point is moot. And even if you go the route of building a separate, mobile website the expense is negligible.

Did You Know?

It's already incredibly important to be mobile-friendly, and it will only become more important as time goes on. Consider the following, 95% of smart phone users have looked for local information, and 88% of these users take action within a day. A recent Google study showed that 2 out of 3 mobile users would leave a site where they had trouble and 40% said they would visit a competitor's mobile site instead.

At the end of the day, you really need to have your business mobile ready. If not, you're losing business.