The title of this article probes into whether your website is suitable for mobile and if you’re a business owner and haven’t asked this question of your company by now then you really should. And soon.
First impressions really do count. Front a consumer point of view, we’ve all been there – you load a website on your mobile and it just doesn’t work. It’s hard to navigate. It’s slow to load. You can’t see what you’re looking for. Frustrated, you leave the website and look for the product or service online elsewhere.
Is that how you would want visitors to view your company? Do you want your business could lose potential new leads and sales due to a poor mobile user experience?
More and more companies are making sure that their websites are just as pleasing on the eye and easy to use on mobile as they are on desktop. We all know someone who sees their mobile phone as an extra limb and according to recent studies, the average person in the UK spends the equivalent to almost a day a week online. Some of that time could be well spent on your site and we’re sure you want it to look its best.
Why is it important to have a good mobile user experience?
It’s no fabrication that mobile-usage has risen exponentially since 2008 and it is fact that more people are using mobiles to search online than ever before. Searching online through mobile has become routine and in the ‘mobile vs desktop’ argument, the former has been gaining traction for a long time and is having a much bigger influence on how we use the internet.
In 2018, mobile was accountable for 52.2% of all internet traffic compared to 50.3% the year before and this time last year (January 2018) there were 3.7 billion global internet users. There is no suggestion that web users are due to drop anytime soon. In today’s internet-crazed world, it would certainly be a poor decision to neglect how your business’ website is seen through a mobile device.
Two key factors that will impact mobile user experience:
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Website loading time
They say you only have seconds to make a first impression, so if your landing page hasn’t even loaded properly in this time then you’re off to the worst possible start. A website should always ideally load on mobile within 3 seconds; according to Google 53% of visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
Optimized pages are imperative to provide a positive user experience. Your site should offer seamless transitions between pages and loading speeds – don’t give your reader any time to contemplate directing their attention away from your site.
Page speed will directly impact your bounce rate; bounce rate is when people only view one page on your website and then decide to leave. Studies conducted by some of the largest companies in the world; the likes of Amazon and Adobe, have found that delays by as little as 100ms can dramatically affect sales as the bounce rate increases. All these statistics point to the same conclusion…
The longer the loading time, the higher the bounce rate.
It’s as simple as that. And it’s fair to say that neither the consumer nor the business will benefit from visiting just the one page on your website. The solution, therefore, is to decrease the loading speeds on each page of your site.
But how, you ask?
There is no one way to decrease loading speeds but a list of factors that are contributing to it. We’ve another blog that lists some of the ways you can decrease loading speeds, check it out here.
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User Experience (UX)
Optimized web pages are those that will enhance the user’s experience. As with any site, user experience is a factor than can attract repeat business or views. Page views are one of the ways in which users show that they’re engaged with the content within that page or site and the more page views per user the more chance there is of converting that user into a consumer of the product or service you are offering.
Using responsive web design is another way of enriching your mobile site and benefiting your customer’s encounter with you. Responsive design adapts the site to the viewport of the user and means that no matter how they choose to access your site, be it desktop, mobile or tablet, they will be greeted with a prime experience, and can conduct their business as they would on any other device.
Benefits of using responsive design can include:
- Faster web pages
- Improved user experience
- Increased traffic
- Lower bounce rates
- Higher conversion rates
- Improved SEO
Responsive design has it negatives also; the same content is downloaded no matter the device, so you may download additional content that cannot be seen. It’s suggested that only key content is displayed to limit this and limit charges when it comes to mobile data.
Using strategies such as responsive web design or AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) can speed up the website and account for different screen sizes on different devices. They’re useful ways of preventing your customer from leaving due to mere inconvenience.
The importance of mobile and how it can positively affect your business is not something any company should be overlooking. Lots companies have yielded excellent results that are, in-part, thanks to how well their website works, looks and feels for the user when on a mobile device.
A well-optimized site is a proven strategy to both boost and maintain performance and some of the most successful businesses from all over the world attribute much of their success to the fact that their services can be accessed so proficiently from a mobile device.
So, what are you waiting for?
