subject: Have You Considered Mobile Website Design For Your Business? [print this page] The vast majority of businesses have some form of online presence, whether they have a website, or merely social media presence or google places and the like. This is highly necessary, because most people use the internet to search for local businesses now, rather than having to get up and dust down the old Yellow Pages.
So, it's necessary to have a good website design to communicate with potential clients, but there is an interesting statistic that makes for some very interesting reading:
The Pew Internet & American Life Project in April 2009 shows that around 19% of Americans accessing the internet were doing so via a mobile device. This went up by about 11% compared to December 2007. In this 16 month period, that is a growth of some 73%.
These figures are from three years ago. Mobile technology has increased significantly during that time. Portable game devices are being fitted with 3G or 4G, cell phones are built with this technology as standard now, and tablet PCs and iPads are far more common. It is likely that at the end of 2012, the majority of internet use will be from one of these devices.
So how does this affect a business?
The answer is, quite significantly. If the majority of internet use is from a mobile device, then it makes sense for these businesses to have a mobile website designed. Why? Simply because if they do not, then potential customers have to navigate a full website on the tiny screens of their phones.
Regular websites are really not designed for such small screens. Moreover, they are not able to display media and other objects very well, perhaps even causing the phone to crash.
Therefore, it is essential for a business to have a watered down version of their main site with highly relevant content, and maybe an image or two.
Consider this example. Your business is a used car yard. You don't have a mobile website, but your competitor does. Potential clients are outlooking for a car to buy. They have exhausted all the car yards they know about, so turn to their cell phone and search for other yards.
Your site comes up, and so they click through. However, your site is not formatted for mobile use. The customer has a hard time negotiating the browser, zooming in and out trying to get information. After a short time, they click back and choose the next option, your competitor.
His mobile website design is clear, precise, and presents all the information they need. They find a couple of cars on the site which interest them, and drive to the yard where they select one and buy it.
Your competitor has just made a sale because your website was not formatted for mobile use. This example illustrates how people use mobile technology to find information they need while out and about, and it is becoming more of a regular occurrence.
Mobile website design is a simple option to have, and a professional will be able to set this up for you in a short period of time. If you already have a website, then all the content and information is there, it's simply a case of presenting it in a format more appropriate for mobile devices.
