Three BIG Reasons Your Small Business Needs a Mobile Friendly Site

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It’s no secret that people are using smartphones for online search. In just a few years, a mobile friendly site has become a must for any business selling online. Take a look at 3 reasons your small business needs a mobile friendly site.

1: Your customers want a mobile friendly site

Smartphone usage more than doubled between January 2011 and January 2013. Tablet use grew even faster – multiplying by seven times, from 3% of Canadians to 21%. Wow!

Internet users in Canada who use select mobile devices

Source: Ipsos Reid, “Mobil-ology,” Feb. 21, 2013

As a result, fewer Canadians are using a desktop to search for your business. And if your business hasn’t made your site mobile friendly yet? For your mobile visitors, it may not be pretty.

Here’s an example. The view on the left (muddy – cluttered – where oh where is the navigation??) illustrates the experience your mobile users may have.

Mobile Friendly vs. Unfriendly

Image from Mobile Site Marketing

User experience is just a fancy term computer geeks use to talk about how easy it is to view, use and navigate a web site. Typical problems of sites that are not mobile-friendly are slow load, hidden navigation, and tiny text that’s hard to read.

They make your visitor experience emotions like frustration, anger, confusion, or even inadequacy.

So they click away. They don’t have time for this. They want their car fixed NOW. Off they fly to find a competitor website that makes that easy.

Your business just lost a possible sale. Worse yet, you left a negative perception. You’ve probably lost a prospect. For good.

2: Google penalizes sites that aren’t mobile friendly

No question, Google rules.

Google dominates search results with a whopping 70% market share. They announced in 2013 that they will penalize non-mobile-sites.

Plus they are crystal clear about recommending mobile sites to business.

It all comes back to user experience.

Google wants users to search successfully. So their site crawlersemphasise user experience. And sites designed solely for desktops do not deliver a good mobile experience.

3: Your sales team wants a mobile friendly site

Maybe your sales team is just you. No matter. You’re interested in selling more, right?

According to one 2012 study, users say that they’re more likely to buy when they visit a mobile friendly site. 61% say they’re more likely to leave, if it isn’t mobile friendly!

Mobile users more likely to buy vs. more likely to leave

Worse yet, almost 50% said that if a site didn’t work on their smartphone, they felt the company didn’t really care about their business.

Ouch!

Sooner, better

The shift to mobile isn’t letting up any time soon. In June 2013 mobile devices became the online shopping champions, garnering 55% of consumer shopping time spent online, compared to 45% for laptops and desktops combined.

A mobile friendly site will help your business sell more and build customer loyalty. Customers want to engage with your business on their terms – not yours. Help them do that and you’ll help your business too.

Contact:

Jessica Miller – Marketing Coordinator

Twitter/@411_ca | Facebook/411ca

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