Making Your Site Mobile Friendly

As the average consumer begins using more mobile phones like IPhone, Android, and other cellular phones or tablets, we begin to see more people looking at websites through their phones. Having a website that is adaptable to web browsing on phones these days is almost always a requirement. The website needs to be not only phone friendly but tablet friendly to accommodate everyone using different cellular devices. A company’s website should have different kinds of HTML on it to recognize whether the user is on a computer or mobile device. A major feature to keep in mind when doing a website that is mobile friendly, would be that you need to keep it easy to navigate as well as fast. What is meant by fast, is that when your website loads it should load instantly and be ready to be used by your customer. Your customer is likely using data to load your website and that is costing your customer money on their data bill. So, you should make sure it comes up quickly and is easy to get around your website. Having your website easy to navigate on a phone is a major plus to have on your website. I can not tell you the amount of times it has been difficult to navigate a website because they either did not lay it out right or they did not have a mobile version of their website for the phone that I use. If you are like me, when a website does not have a mobile friendly website or I have to zoom in really close to see what is on the website it is frustrating and makes me not want to look at that website but instead move on to one that is mobile friendly. When a consumer looks at pages on the website designed for our mobile devices it is very different than the one on the actual website that we see with our computer. The pages on the site for our phones are only showing what the company feels are the most important items it wishes for us too see. But, if they were on the full website the consumer would see all of the content that the company offers. Another cool feature I have seen on some of the new mobile friendly websites is that they have phone numbers that the consumer just clicks on and it will call the number, instead of them having to dial it in. Another one of the newer features is that when the company gives their address, it will ask if you need directions, if you do it will automatically put it into your phone’s map/directions app. One other major factor with setting up a mobile friendly is having Google be able to differentiate from the main website and the mobile website. If Google knows the difference, this will ensure that the customers on the phone will go directly to the mobile friendly site and not the website for the computers. A majority of people are now using their phones to search for products and services. Many consumers often buy products online off either their phones or tablets because it has become much easier to use cellphones and tables than to go all the way over to their computers and shop there. As you can see if you do not have a mobile friendly website then you are hurting your business by not bringing in new and lifelong consumers to your mobile site as well as those that have bought before from their computers.

References:

Scott, D. M. (2015). The new rules of marketing & PR: How to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.