Earlier this year, Google announced that mobile search queries had overtaken those being carried out on desktop devices. The announcement came as little surprise, with the search engine giant having spent some time flagging up the rapid rise in mobile search.
It was only a matter of time before this point was reached, but how prepared is your business? Have you invested in ensuring that you are delivering the best possible experience for mobile visitors?
The rise of the smartphone
As smartphone technologies have improved, many mobile devices have become better at rendering standard web pages. But we’ve all experienced the frustrations associated with visiting sites that simply don’t function properly on a mobile or tablet. That may mean struggling to see the site in its full glory, or more critical problems: visitors may find that they aren’t able to navigate through your site or even complete the on-site contact form.
The first stage in the process should always be to check out how well things are functioning. That will inevitably mean running checks on multiple devices, running multiple operating systems and browsers. Although this can be time consuming, it is time that is well spent.
If you’re failing to present users with an acceptable experience, then you can be sure that you are losing out on business. Those visitors will be drifting off to the websites of competitors and you can be sure that rivals will be snapping up the leads that you are missing out on.
If you find that you are lumbered with a website that simply doesn’t provide a decent experience, then you’ll need to consider your options, which broadly fall into 3 categories:
- Make improvements to your site in order to ensure that it functions correctly. Whether this is a realistic approach or not is likely to depend upon the specifics of your site. A large-scale overhaul will often be more expensive than starting over.
- Create a brand new, responsive site. A responsive website is one that is designed to work well across a wide variety of devices and browsers. Cutting edge web design techniques ensure that your website is able to respond to requests and to serve the best experience.
- Create a separate website for mobile users. We’re seeing this technique used less and less, with an increasing number of website owners opting to build responsive sites instead. But there are occasionally good reasons for building a separate site in this way.
The rise of mobile has caught some business owners by surprise. It’s important that you do take action, in order to secure future leads. If you’re spending your advertising budget on attracting visitors to a website that simply isn’t performing, then you are undoubtedly wasting money as things stand.