Top Challenges in Modern Website Design - #2 Mobile

Well, at least people are starting to pay attention. Most website owners are aware now that their sites look like postage stamps on smart phones. As long as your competitors' sites don't look or work any better, you're ok, right? Wrong. You're missing a huge number of lead generation opportunities if your mobile website isn't optimized. Some of the more astonishing facts...

• Mobile Internet use will overtake desktop use in less than 2 years
• The #1 way people access local information is via the mobile web browser, with over 20 million users per month
• About 90% in the US have web-ready mobile devices, or smart phones
• One half of all searches are now being performed on mobile devices

The Opportunity

If you’re a B2C company selling products and services online, chances are you’re already onboard with these trends. Why? Because we are all using smart phones to find stores and restaurants with the best deals and the latest promotions. If you haven’t optimized your online store for mobile yet, you should realize that you're missing some huge opportunities.

According to KISS Metrics, 88% of mobile users are more likely to buy from an auto dealer with a mobile-ready website. 65% for auto parts stores, 62% for furniture, 61% for florists and so on. The fact is, having a mobile optimized site is a tremendous advantage for B2C companies.

What About B2B?

According to e-Marketer, almost 60% of all B2B decision makers in the US are on their smartphones every day for email and web browsing. They use mobile web sites and apps to make informed decisions. Another 46% are participating in social media, especially in industry forums in places like LinkedIn on their mobile devices, and another 20-30% are reading blog posts and listening to podcasts for information to support their decision making. If you aren't out there in these venues with a mobile optimized website and/or app, and regularly participating in blogs and social media, you are missing the attention of these decision makers.

What Do You Mean by Mobile Optimized?

Like it or not, you already have a mobile website, and decision makers are viewing it via search and mobile web browsers right now. If you think I'm exaggerating, go look at your Google Analytics data for the last month. Go to Visitors and you’ll see a section called Mobile. Click on Mobile Devices, and I think you'll be amazed at how much traffic is coming to your site right now from mobile. So what do these visitors see when they click through to your site?

• You have to zoom in to read anything, probably multiple times.
• There's too much text. No one will bother to read it.
• Your eye-catching calls to action can't be seen.
• You landing page forms are too small to fill out.
• In a mobile setting, no one will take the time to browse your website and navigate through many layers of content.

Mobile optimized sites work hard to simplify content and make it highly readable. They take advantage of audio-video content instead of long pages of text. They draw you in to the most important lead generation content and ignore the more mundane stuff.

How to Optimize My Site for Mobile?

There are two ways to go:

1. Responsive Web Design - you need an ace web designer/developer for this one. He/she will need to work out a strategy on your website for displaying certain content, layout and images when the visitor is on a mobile device and other elements when they are on a laptop or desktop. Through careful manipulation of CSS, they can make this work, but it's difficult to anticipate all of the possible screen sizes and formats, and not all smartphones support this approach.
2. Separate Mobile Site - in this scenario you add javascript to your website that detects the kind of device your visitor is using and redirects them to your mobile site (on a subdomain or separate mobile domain) if they are on a smartphone. The advantage here is that you can have completely separate content, layout and design that makes it easy to navigate and consume your mobile-relevant content. The strategy is to rethink your mobile site to appeal to mobile visitors and convert them to sales leads.

As you can probably tell, we recommend the separate mobile site option because it is elegant, works on any mobile device (if done correctly) and is completely optimized for mobile users. If you are starting your website from scratch and you've hired a really good designer/developer that's an expert in responsive design, that approach may work well for you. Both approaches cost additional money above and beyond your basic website costs, but the ability to appeal to the rapidly expanding mobile marketplace easily justifies the additional costs.

What's the best mobile website option for your company? We can help - click here for more information.

Building the Right Mobile Presence for Your Business

Did you know that mobile web use will overtake desktop use by 2015? Create and manage an effective mobile website while getting the attention of mobile visitors, keeping their interest with mobile-ready content and capturing them as sales leads. In this report, we present best practices for creating and managing an effective mobile website.