The Top 12 Reasons Why Your Website Needs to be Mobile Responsive to Grow Your Business

People go online and visit websites to learn more about businesses, brands, products and services and to make quick and easy online purchases.

If you don’t have a website, you are in a real danger of going out of business. The only exception to the rule is if: 1. you don’t depend on
your website to stay in business, or 2. you have no competitors.

If any of those reasons apply to you, then you are okay and can carry as normal. However, if your business does need an online presence and you do have competitors, getting a responsive website should be your number one marketing goal.

Why your business needs a responsive website:

If the term ‘responsive web design’ is new to you, don’t feel bad. You are by no means alone.

Responsive web design is simply a website that adjusts gracefully to fit on desktop, tablet, and smartphone. So no matter what device a visitor is using to view your website, a responsive website will look good no matter whether you are looking at it on a phone, tablet or desktop.

However you may be questioning whether or not you really do need a mobile responsive website.

No doubt you will have seen for yourself how many people are using tablets and smartphones to go online. You probably even do it yourself. Walking around, we all seemed to be plugged in to our mobile device these days.

So why are there still so many businesses that have not yet adapted and changed their site to a mobile responsive site?

Whatever the reason it is not too late for your business.

Here are the Top 12 Reasons why your business website should convert to Responsive Web Design.

1. It is recommended by Google

Since Google is the primary search engine to impress with your website, it would be foolish to ignore any Google recommendation.
Google not only recommends Responsive Web Design (RWD) as the best way to target mobile and tablet users but it also favors mobile-optimized sites when presenting results for searches made on a mobile device. This is especially true when mobile users search for local services.

On the 6th June 2012 Google published this quote: “Sites that use responsive web design, i.e. sites that serve all devices on the same set of URLs, with each URL serving the same HTML to all devices and using just CSS to change how the page is rendered on the device. This is Googles recommended configuration.”

With 67 percent search market share, when Google speaks, search marketing professionals and business owners listen. Google now states that responsive web design is the industry best practice.

When you think about it, it’s also easier and less confusing for users to share, interact with, and link to than content on a stripped down mobile site.

For instance, a mobile user who shares content from a mobile site with a friend on the Facebook app who then accesses that content using a desktop, which results in that user viewing a stripped down mobile site on their desktop. This creates a less than positive user-experience, and because of the large emphasis Google is now placing on user-experience as a ranking factor, this is essential to take into account with regards to SEO.

2. One Website, Multiple Devices

Providing a great user-experience across multiple devices and screen sizes is the most appealing and most critical aspect of responsive web design for today’s mobile world.

For example, if you search for a birthday gift on your smartphone during a break at work then continue researching the product on the same site on your desktop when you get home, because the site is responsive you won’t be frustrated with the extra steps to locate the desktop version of the site, and
find the product all over again. It makes life so much simpler and your potential customers will love you for it.

3. It is Easier to Manage

Having a separate desktop AND mobile site requires having separate Google AdWords campaigns, SEO campaigns and separate Google Analytics reports which becomes very confusing. Managing one site is far easier than managing two sites.

4. Positive User Experience Is Key

When mobile users land on a website that is not mobile responsive, those users tend to leave that website and a sales opportunity is missed.

In fact if a user lands on your mobile website and is frustrated or doesn’t see what they are looking for, according to Google’s Think Insights on Mobile, there’s a 61 % chance they will leave and go to a different website. Data shows a positive experience with your responsive website a user is 67% more likely to buy a product or use a service.

So it makes perfect sense to upgrade your site into a mobile responsive one.

5. Blogging and Social Activities Bring Mobile Visitors

If you have been following our advice and incorporating business blogging and social media in your online marketing strategy, you will have most likely experienced increased mobile traffic. A recent study by ComScore cites that 55% of social media consumption happens on a mobile device with more and more people accessing social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram on their phones.

6. Responsive Design is Preferred for SEO

Typically, Mobile responsive Websites perform better and are easier to maintain. One thing not mentioned above is that a challenge and disadvantage of having a separate mobile site is that you will need to build the authority and reputation of this site from scratch, and who wants to go to that extra trouble? It is
better just to upgrade to a mobile responsive site and keep the existing traffic and authority that you already have.

7. Small Businesses Need Mobile Friendly Responsive Sites

Because so many people are now using their smartphones to access the Internet, this has led to a rapid decline in desktop Internet browsing.

Having a mobile friendly business website will attract many more customers for you. It has been confirmed that over 90% of mobile users search for a local business enterprise on their mobile device. What is even more significant is that these mobile searchers invariably contact the business they have researched within 24 hours. Hence, if your business website is mobile-friendly, you will attract more customers and increase your profits.

8. A Speedy Responsive Website is Vital

The content per page on a mobile or tablet device should load in under 1 – 2 seconds according to the Google Page Speed Developers standards. Your visitors are busy people and like speed. If the site takes too long to load, they won’t hang around. They will click off the site and visit your competitor instead.

9. No More Lost Revenue Because Of Lack of engagement

If you don’t have any meaningful engagement with mobile users, it will be very expensive for your business. Figures show that small to medium sized businesses that lack mobile friendly sites lose billions in revenue.

As mentioned earlier, a mobile responsive website is indispensable for your social media campaigns. Since many of your potential customers use a smartphone or tablet to locate your business, Google spiders show a higher affinity for mobile-ready websites.

By being active on social media and providing links to your mobile website guarantees more activity arriving your way in the form of visitors and buyers. If your links get reposted, your website is assured of a higher ranking in the search engines.

10. Mobile-Friendly Responsive Design Brings Fresh Sales

Having a mobile web presence will result in brand new sales opportunities for your business.Because your potential customers use mobile devices on an ongoing basis every day and it is part of their web browsing routine, a mobile-ready site results in sales opportunities that you would miss out on an conventional business website.

11. eCommerce is now mCommerce

The dramatic growth of mCommerce in the last 5 years has prompted small businesses to revamp their business websites. If you haven’t done so, you can afford to delay in remodeling your business website to capitalize on this rise in mCommerce.

You will have the power to convert visitors arriving via mobile devices into loyal customers. An increasing number of people are opting for online purchases because it not only saves money but also saves energy and time that making the trip to the retail store takes. Mobile shopping has definitely become more mainstream. You can keep with this trend by optimizing your offline business to cater for mobile users. Just ensure that the user-experience and purchasing process on your business website is glitch-free. Convert mobile users into loyal customers.

12. Setting Up A Mobile Responsive site Is Inexpensive and Simple

Setting up a mobile website for your business need not be expensive. As with all sophisticated technology, mobile webdesign and upkeep used to be extremely expensive when it was first introduced. Now, however, you can have a fresh, dynamic responsive web design without making too much of a
dent in your marketing budget.

In a lot of cases you don’t even need to start creating it from scratch. Your website developer would be able to explain what options are available to you.

The Future is Mobile ….. We Can Help!

As you can see, having a mobile-friendly responsive website is an indispensable tool for your online marketing campaigns.

Because smartphone use is expected to exceed actual desktop use in the next 12 months, your business will miss out on an excellent opportunity for additional sales if you don’t act now.

We specialize in making your business website mobile friendly. We can create a professional responsive site on a budget and quickly. Call today to see how we can help.