Times have changed. Remember when people gabbed about last night’s baseball game at the water cooler? They’d argue over the big rivalries like the Yankees vs. the Mets, the Cardinals against the Reds.
Now the water cooler topic rivalry is Apple vs. Android or iPhone 6S vs. Samsung’s S6 Edge. And your last lunch conversation? Quite likely it was interrupted by a quick peek at your latest text or chatting about your phone’s newest apps.
Yup, people love their phones.
Which Begs The Question: Is Your Business Mobile-Friendly?
If not, that needs to be your number one business priority right now. Consider this: In 2014, customers hunting for information on their phones and tablets impacted 29% of all retail sales to the tune of $970 billion.
Local searches are especially important: When people are out and about, they’re most likely to look up your business’s location and operating hours on their phone. Google reports that 50% of mobile searches lead to a store visit within 24 hours. Once those information-seekers step through your doorway, you have a golden opportunity to convert a potential customer into a paying one.
Google’s 2015 Consumer Barometer
You can no longer afford to neglect mobile in your business strategy.
It’s not just small businesses who are overlooking mobile responsive websites. Even major brand names can be deficient when it comes to mobile. They are driving away customers and losing sales with poorly performing sites. Take a look at how the fashion clothing chain Lane Bryant appears on leading tablets and phones. I wouldn’t call that stylish!
If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re losing customers. Approximately 80% of consumers say they’re sometimes reluctant to buy online because of mobile-unfriendly issues such as slow load times, inability to see product details, challenging navigation between pages, and difficulties inputting payment info.
Furthermore, a bad experience may tarnish your brand’s reputation and reduce customer satisfaction. Luckily, there are well-established best practices for making your website mobile-friendly. I’ll share the three things you should tackle first.
HOW TO ENSURE YOUR WEBSITE IS MOBILE-FRIENDLY
Step 1: Visual Spot-Checks
Your first step is to spot-check your web pages and inspect how they display on leading devices. Here, online testing labs like Mobilizer offer fast, easy options.
Simply insert your website’s address and in less than a minute, the testing lab delivers screenshots of how your site will look on all the leading phones and tablets. Scroll down to check if your web pages are delivering a great customer experience or if there are serious flaws or embarrassing glitches.
For example, take a quick look at how well ONTRAPORT performs on leading phones and tablets.
Such online testing labs may also supply metrics detailing your site’s performance on each phone or tablet. These numbers reveal how many seconds it takes to load your web page, how long customers are engaging with your content, and the most important metric: which of your website’s visitors are converting. This data helps you identify key areas that need improvement.
Step 2: Responsive Web Design
According to Google, “The single most easy, efficient and cost-effective solution to achieve mobile friendliness is responsive web design (RWD).”A responsive web design renders your website to the broadest audience (including mobile) with the least expenditure of time and money.
RWD is an ingenious design technique that uses a single HTML code and a single URL address for all platforms. Whether the consumer is browsing the site on a desktop PC or their preferred mobile device, the website will identify the device being used and adapt to its screen size and functionality.
The trick of RWD is that it employs a fluid grid and flexible images. As your website identifies the smaller screen and altered proportions of the user’s device, it shifts to a more vertically stacked and simplified presentation. Visitors can simply scroll down the site to experience all essential functions. Images, too, are set to readjust with shifting proportions and resolutions to ensure they fit the screen and are still viewable.
Step 3: Seize The Opportunities
Ensuring your website is mobile friendly is just the first step to pleasing customers and improving sales. Mobile is altering the rules of B2C and B2B business dealings and creating new opportunities to reach out and entice customers.
For example: Shopping online and shopping in a brick-and-mortar store used to be two distinct activities. Now in-store shoppers often hunt for product reviews and info online. Small businesses need to respond by making that information readily available on their website. You can quickly leverage those online queries by targeting shoppers with special offers delivered via email or by offering online chat assistance.
Most large companies cannot match small businesses in customer friendliness, hands-on service and convenience, but today’s expectations of superior customer service and convenience certainly include mobile accessibility. Small businesses must evolve to stay competitive and grab the opportunities provided by smartphones and tablets to engage shoppers.
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Dan Engel, a serial SaaS entrepreneur, has been in the ecommerce & software industries since 1997. Currently, Dan is CEO of Mobile1st, which released Mobilizer, the web-page-to-mobile-device testing tool. Previously, Dan led customer acquisition at GoToMeeting and GoToMyPC, Picasa, and Google. He then co-founded and was CEO at FastSpring, a leading web store provider to 3,000 global software clients. Dan resides in Santa Barbara, California, with his family of four and delights in the region’s remarkably temperate weather.
