The Importance of a Mobile Friendly Website in 2017

Websites have become an integral part of any business, whether an e-commerce business or brick-and-mortar. Marketers have realised the essence of having sites for easier marketing and interaction with clients. A large number of business owners, however, have been avoiding a very crucial aspect while building their websites; not making them mobile friendly. Some business owners and marketers might be ignorant of the essence of having mobile-friendly sites in 2017, but what are the importances of it? Marketers may not be reaching the intended number of audiences when they use websites which are not mobile friendly, but they may not be aware of this. Let’s break down some of the reasons why having a mobile-friendly website in 2017 should be top of the list while building an interactive business website.

Wide Coverage
The widespread of smartphones and other mobile devices like tablets has brought about a phenomenon where, since October 2016, desktop traffic has been overtaken by mobile traffic on the internet. This behaviour means that it’s easier to reach more people by using mobile-friendly websites than sites which are built around a desktop platform. Desktop traffic continues to decrease with the increase in mobile traffic with a predicted reach of 79% of the entire web traffic from mobile by 2019. Business without mobile-friendly websites is missing a big deal on potential clients whose browsing history revolves primarily on mobile devices.

Increased Website Speeds
The speed at which a website load plays a significant role in user-experience as many clients are looking for sites which they can navigate through fast enough. Once users visit your site on a stable internet connection but still has to wait for minutes for the website to load, it’s more likely that they will close the tab and move to your competitor. Having a mobile-friendly website helps in reducing traffic on the main site, which increase speeds by distributing users to the mobile site. Apart from losing potential customers, Google is now considering the speed of websites in its ranking, which means that a slow website is less likely to appear on the first page of search engines, leading to a low clients reach.

Google Crawling
Mobile usability of websites is considered the third most important factor when Google is ranking websites. There was a major shift in November 2016 when Google made a declaration that the mobile version of a website would be crawled first before going to the desktop version. This crawling was influenced by the increased use of mobile phones to browse the internet than desktops. Having a mobile-friendly user in 2017, therefore, means that your site will be ranked higher than those which have poor user-experience.

On-The-Go Consumer Engagement
Since many users are now accessing the internet on their smartphones, it becomes easier to reach clients who are in most cases on the move. Having a mobile-friendly website makes it easy for users to access all your services and even contact the customer support from their mobile devices from anywhere. Visitors in your local area are more likely to search for services from their smartphones when travelling or in a restaurant having their meals as opposed to visiting the local cyber cafe. Betting companies, for example, will find mobile-friendly sites a core factor to consider when building their websites as many gamblers are always placing their bets at any time of the day or night from their phones. Having a mobile-friendly site will help companies stay ahead of their competition.

Increased Revenue
Websites which target other companies for revenues through advertisement should consider having a mobile-friendly website in 2017. Affiliate companies which undertake the tasks of posting other companies’ services on their sites need a website which is well displayed on any device screen size without overflowing. More so, there are companies who specifically contact affiliate marketers who have mobile-friendly websites as they target clients on the mobile platforms. This targeting is brought about by the idea that mobile users are more action-oriented as compared to desktop users.

Mobile users will most likely convert to sales since they are objective in their searches. Being objective means that a mobile user will most likely browse the internet with the intention of making a purchase or taking action considering that they may be running on a data plan which they try to minimise as much as possible. Once they land on a mobile-friendly site, there is a high likelihood of taking action or even bookmarking for a revisit. On the other hand, desktop users who operate on an unlimited internet connection do random searches even without an objective to take action.

Data Analysis
Data is a crucial element in any business as it helps in decision making by determining your source of traffic. Having both a desktop and mobile-friendly website gives a platform where you can compare your source of traffic which converts to sales. A comparison between these two platforms will help companies determine the best-performing sites, the origin of traffic, and the conversion rate of each site. This kind of data helps a company in determining which platform to concentrate more in their intended reach through online advertisement.

Social Media Engagement
The rise in the use of social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have seen a large number of marketers targeting these users with the aim of converting them into leads. Many people are spending a lot of time on social media and may not have time to search the internet for services and goods. Bringing information to the users on social networks by marketers has proved to be a great idea in enticing potential clients into visiting their companies’ website. Diverting the attention of users from social media platforms to your site needs a mobile-friendly website which will ensure that the potential client spends the most time navigating the site with an intended aim of making an impulse purchase. Users who find a mobile-friendly site, even though they may not take action at the time, the possibility of revisiting the site is higher as compared to a website which looks shoddy from their mobile devices.