We sure do love our cell phones don’t we?
Having a mobile-optimized website is no longer merely a digital asset that is nice to have. It is now an essential marketing must-have for businesses wishing to stay competitive.
With each passing year, increasingly more Canadians are using smartphones as their directory of choice for finding local businesses. Whether you need an emergency plumber or are browsing for a new local restaurant to try, the nearest smart device is often the first place people turn to.
If your company’s web presence is lacking in any way, one of your more web-savvy competitors will likely nab that next potential sale.
Consider the Facts
According to information found on the global data and business intelligence platform Statista:
“In the third quarter of 2023, around 34.6 million Canadians were subscribed to wireless services. Canadians are also going wireless to browse the web: mobile internet user penetration in Canada currently stands at an all-time high of 93.6 percent, and this gradual switch from desktop to mobile is increasingly showing in Canada’s online traffic.”
As of July 2024, Google remains Canada’s most frequently visited website. We probably don’t have to explain the appeal and significance of that particular juggernaut other than to say that people everywhere rely on it daily.
Online reviews, images, ads, and social media posts remain highly influential in people’s decision-making. If the website they point to—your company’s official website—appears wonky or challenging to access on a smaller screen, that prospective customer will likely bounce away.
Mobile Optimization Means Your Website Is Easy to Read
The sad reality is that it takes the average customer roughly 7 to 8 seconds to assess your website’s suitability for their purposes. Rightly or wrongly, the merits of your brand are often judged on first appearances and the functionality of your site.
Websites that aren’t responsive (strategically optimized for mobile devices) are challenging to view and difficult to navigate. These websites open slowly and appear cluttered with improperly sized visuals and overly abundant, wordy text.
Potential customers will only work so hard to find the information they need. You don’t have much time to spare as a service provider or online retailer. If your website is not mobile-optimized, you are losing a lot of traffic that could have converted into sales and possibly even future repeat business.
Therefore, to succeed in the digital landscape, attract more customers, and boost your brand awareness, you must ensure your website is as strategically optimized and mobile-friendly as possible.
Here are the reasons why you should have a mobile-optimized website and the financial benefits it offers you.
Improving User Experience
User experience is what makes your audience stay on your website longer.
If a website is easy to navigate while using a mobile phone, your audience is more likely to invest themselves in its content. The more persuasive your messaging is, the less inclined people will be to check other sites for the same service. This leads to greater customer engagement and people subscribing to your company or buying your stuff.
People Are Always Looking
Remember that, as of 2023, Canadians spend an average of 5.65 hours per day perusing online content on their mobile phones. And if the trends remain on the same trajectory, those numbers will only continue to increase. Wow!
No matter your opinions on the appropriate amount of time spent on smartphone use, the reality is that people appreciate the convenience and entertainment value these compact handheld marvels provide.
If Google.com is where most Canadians are heading first, where else are we spending our time? According to data compiled by Semrush via their Traffic Analytics tool, the other most frequently visited websites in the top 5 include:
- YouTube
- Amazon.ca
Imagine you’ve invested in a digital ad spend to promote your business. Or maybe you’ve posted a new promotional video or company culture profile on your preferred social media platforms. If you plan to drive more traffic toward your website, you need to ensure you’re giving customers someplace good to go.
Alas, this is where the proverbial wheels fall off for many businesses.
Lower Bounce Rates & Higher Conversions
It’s a shame if curious potential customers navigate to your website only to find:
- Text that is too small and barely legible
- Buttons that are too tiny to click
- Endless advert pop-ups
You don’t have to be a digital marketing specialist to predict what that person will do.
Not surprisingly, this disappointing experience will cause users to exit your site rather quickly. Also, whenever your brand name pops up in the future, that same individual may continue to avoid engaging with you based on that initial lacklustre, non-responsive experience.
But it’s not just about avoiding frustration and losing customers. Improving the user experience on your website brings many long-term benefits. Interested guests become invested customers.
Mobile-Friendliness vs. Optimized vs. Responsive
Before we dive into the many positive attributes of a newly revamped and custom-friendly website, we first need to differentiate the difference between a website that is “optimized” versus one that is “responsive” and one that is merely “mobile-friendly.” Although these terms may sound similar, they actually mean quite different things.
Mobile-Friendly
Mobile-friendly websites have been designed for the desktop computer experience and are essentially shrunken-down versions for mobile devices, which doesn’t necessarily translate when scrolling with your thumb. The reasons for maintaining a website that is only “mobile-friendly” may include:
- A company lacks the resources to update its site
- Many websites are only intended for internal office use.
- The product or service’s target audience primarily uses desktop computers (e.g., customers looking to buy enterprise application software)
Optimized Websites
Optimized websites have been strategically reimagined to complement the mobile experience. Once optimized, these websites can be made mobile responsive. To create a more pleasing mobile experience for people, optimized websites usually feature the following elements:
- Reduced volumes of content
- Simplified navigation (hamburger menus)
- Single-column layout
- Functionality designed for thumbs
- Prominent, clickable calls to action
Mobile-Responsive Websites
Mobile-responsive websites are the ideal type of website for most companies’ purposes. These websites are built to automatically reformat the size of the screen on which they are being viewed. In terms of creating a positive user experience on all devices, this is what most are striving for.
Starting in July of 2024, Google stopped indexing and ranking non-mobile responsive websites, which is potentially horrible news for companies whose websites don’t conform.
The Benefits of Being Responsive
Responsive websites make your content more accessible to all web traffic, and it does so immediately. If your visitors can read your content easily without zooming in and out, it leads to increased engagement. It also increases the time spent on your content, which usually leads them further down the sales funnel.
Eliminates the Need for App Development
If you’re the type of person who gets annoyed when you visit a website only to be prompted to download the app version of the website, you understand the appeal of mobile responsiveness.
With a mobile-optimized website, you do not need to spend money creating an app as you have all the resources on the website. Building a new app is more expensive than building a new website.
Negligible Loading Time
Users can quickly access your website without waiting ages for the images to load. As soon as people are made to wait, they will instantly look for a way to back out.
Better Search Engine Ranking
Google crawlers love a mobile-optimized website. They even introduced Mobilegeddon in 2015, an algorithm penalizing those websites that failed to be mobile-friendly.
So, if you want to rank on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), you need to concentrate on SEO and user intent to ensure your website is mobile-optimized.
Increased Conversion Rates
Mobile users are more likely to frequent websites that are easy to navigate. But how does mobile optimization help increase conversion rates?
Considering that more people use their mobile phones daily to stay connected to the internet, you are missing out if your website is a mess on mobile devices.
Also, having a mobile-optimized website creates a seamless user experience that encourages the visitor to take action. If it is easy to scroll through the products or services offered, read the descriptions, and pay seamlessly, customers will likely return to your website and recommend it to friends.
Get a Mobile Optimization Expert to Help
If you are unfamiliar with the technical aspects of website development or customization, you can mess it up in your attempts to improve it.
For example, if you have a web designer who’s willing to cut corners, they may try to improve your website’s appearance by simply hiding its content. That revised website may appear clean and refined, but behind the scenes, those hidden elements are bogging things down as they still need time to load.
Solution? Discuss your concerns with a web agency specializing in responsive websites. You want a company that can develop your web presence from front to back. If you already have a mobile responsive website, have an expert in SEO review it further to discover other opportunities for improvement.
Remember, the best websites are dynamic and constantly building upon themselves.
An experienced web team, like the folks at Agency Media, can assess your website performance on mobile phones and tablets and make the necessary changes to improve how it is perceived.
Let’s Chat
A mobile-optimized website is a wonderful marketing tool for any business. If you want to demonstrate how adaptable your company is, or you want to greet your customers in the most welcoming and friendly manner. We can help.
On the subject of customer service, we never phone it in.
Talk to Agency Media today, and we can help you with mobile-optimization for your website. Our web finesse can help you tap into that ever-growing customer base that lives online.