5 Reasons Your Business Must Have a Mobile Optimised Website

The online world is going mobile. Every day, more people are using their mobile devices to access business website. And research shows that if your website design isn’t optimised for mobile, you’re losing sales. More than 80 percent of shoppers say their mobile purchases are impulse-driven and they’re more likely to buy from a site and company that provides an engaging mobile experience.

More than half of mobile users (57 percent) bounce off websites if they take more than 3 seconds to upload, and 30 percent abandon purchase transactions if their shopping cart isn’t mobile friendly.

Despite the growing importance of having a mobile friendly site, most small business have not optimised their website.

If you’re one of them, here are five reasons why you must have mobile web design.

1. People have different needs when they use mobile devices

When someone accesses your website from their desktop, they typically have time to browse. Mobile users, however, are looking for quick, easy to understand bites of information. Mobile users are also more likely to buy on impulse — statistics show mobile shoppers spend more per purchase than their desktop counterparts.

So your mobile site needs to keep every function intuitive and simple, and the site needs to load quickly. Don’t make your mobile users have to go through a lot of pages to get what they want—align your site functions with mobile users that make decisions on the go.

2. Users search mobile sites while doing other things

A billion users worldwide initiation more than one-quarter of their web searches mobile devices, and those numbers are only going to increase with time. Smartphone users are searching mobile websites and apps while watching TV programs, commuting to school or work and while using their desktop computer. Mobile websites are important.

Google’s Hummingbird update indicates that the future of search is mobile, and websites that aren’t optimised for mobile devices will experience downgrades in their search ranking.

3. People engage with brands more on mobile

A mobile friendly website creates affinity with users. When you offer a satisfying mobile experience, people are more engaged with your brand and are more likely to return to your website on other devices.

Conversely, if your mobile website is tough to navigate, users will find a competitor that has an easy to use website. They simply will not take the time to pull up your site from their desktop. If you cannot provide what your users want, when they want it, you’re losing sales and giving your competitors additional revenue.

4. Mobile users are more likely to convert

When some visits a desktop optimised site from their mobile device, they tend to leave without buying for all the reasons listed above—one-third of them will quit a transaction if the site isn’t optimised for mobile. One reason is that calls-to-action (CTAs) that look great on desktop pages become obscured on mobile sites, links are harder to click and contact information is buried in jumbled menus. Shoppers just don’t have patience for awkward websites.

To take full advantage of mobile, CTAs need to be easy to spot and click on, and contact information needs to be one of the first things users notice.

5. Optimised site lower your bounce rates

Content loads and reads differently on desktop and mobile devices. Just because it looks good on one, does not mean it will look good on another. If visitors have to squint, scroll and maneuver to read illegible type, they will bounce off your site. Flash or other features that require add-ons to display in a browser compound the problem.

If you don’t optimise for mobile, your bounce rate is going to be unnecessarily high. To check the mobile health of your website, load your site on your mobile device and ask yourself these questions:

• Does the website load in less than three seconds?
• Does the website draw your attention to key selling points?
• Is the content easy to understand?
• Is the website easy to navigate?
• Is it easy to identify and select the call to action?
• Does the site provide a good user experience?
• Would you visit the website if it was not your own?

Did you answer “no” to any of these questions? Then it’s time to optimise your website design for mobile and capture the traffic and sales you’ve been missing.