By now, you’ve probably heard that you need a mobile website but you might not know WHY you need one. If the reasons are compelling enough, you’ll invest in one, right? That’s usually how business owners arrive at most decisions so let me help you with that. Read about why you need a mobile website.
Quick Tool to See If You Have a Mobile Website or Not
First: do this test: click this link to go to Google’s Mobile-Friendly Website Tool. (another browser window opens. Close it when done and you’ll still see this blog post). I want to you to make sure you know if your website is mobile-friendly or not.
So you’re back from taking that test and found out you do, indeed, need a mobile website but still aren’t convinced as to why. Read on, my friend…
Why You Need a Mobile Website
1. Your customers deserve a pleasant experience navigating your website. Don’t make them stretch their tiny screens to read your tiny text. If they have to do this, they’ll quickly get frustrated and leave your website – IF they visit it in the first place, thanks to Google labeling which websites are “mobile-friendly.” (See example below).
The Google Webmaster Blog describes the mobile user’s experience this way:
“Have you ever tapped on a Google Search result on your mobile phone, only to find yourself looking at a page where the text was too small, the links were tiny, and you had to scroll sideways to see all the content? This usually happens when the website has not been optimized to be viewed on a mobile phone.”
2. Your family. Chances are you’re contributing to bringing home the bacon and your family deserves to benefit from an increase in your revenue and in the continual growth of your company. If you don’t have a mobile website, your competitors probably already have one or are working on one right now. If not, then this is an opportunity for your business. And that could mean the difference between having enough for your child’s first year of college tuition or not.
3. Google. On April 21, 2015, Google officially started giving preference to mobile-friendly websites in mobile searches by labeling search results with: “Mobile-friendly.” Why? Google ultimately wants to give users a valuable experience while searching. If they show you a website in the search results that’s NOT mobile-friendly, then Google is NOT living up to its own standards.
Here’s what a mobile search result looks like. See where it says “Mobile-friendly”? You click on that site and you’ll be able to use it on your phone easily.
Do You REALLY Need a Mobile-Friendly Website?
Yes. Though Google is giving preference to old, old domains that have been in use for many, many years and showing those websites high in the search results, even above mobile-friendly sites, I would still not wait to get a mobile site. In my research, I found that some local search results still work like the “before time.” That means if a website has had the same domain for many years (more than five years) and has been properly Search Engine Optimized, it’s still listed higher up in the organic search results than newer mobile-friendly sites – at least in my research regarding local businesses, this is true. But don’t delay getting this important project done. Check out your competitors by either copying/pasting a competitor’s link into the Google Mobile-Friendly Test or viewing their websites on your mobile phone to see if “Mobile-friendly” is labeled on their search results.
How Do You Get a Mobile Website?
The best solution is a website that is Responsive. That means your website “responds” properly and displays properly no matter which type of device it’s seen on: mobile phone; iPad; tablet; laptop; desktop. Responsive design 
has been standard for at least four years now.
A TEMPORARY and fast solution is to get a mobile website with DudaMobile or GoMobi. But that’s not the best solution because then you have to keep up two websites. In the long run, you’ll be glad you decided to choose the solution that makes the most sense: Responsive design.
When hiring a web design agency or web developer to develop your new website, be sure you ask to see examples of their recent work and be sure you view these sites on your mobile phone or do the Google Mobile-friendly test on them. You should NOT have to stretch the screen to make the text bigger. You should NOT have to do any horizontal scrolling. Responsive design uses flexible grids to make pages with flexible layouts for all devices/screen sizes.
Here at DaGama Web Studio and Digital Marketing Agency, Responsive mobile-friendly websites are standard. Give us a call if you need help: 970-302-6994.
