Why your website should be mobile friendly

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Posted by Felix Okoli on Friday July 10, 2015 at 16:12:23:

When I designed and launched my first website, the goal then was just to put a site online and the target visitors were desktop and laptop computers. As time went by however, I noticed that there was a growing number of visitors also coming from mobile devices such as mobile phones and tablets. Those were basically smaller computers with smaller screens and there was equally a growing need to make my website more friendly to their screen, hence the need to mobilize it.

Nowadays, it seems that mobile traffic has trumped desktop traffic as more people in our world today make more use of mobile phones and tablets to browse the web for information than they do with their desktop computers. Gone are the good old days when people bent their backs just to peep at their computer screens and type of a keyboard attached to it although that still exists in many workplaces but a majority of real people who live in the real world and who use the web not necessarily for work but for other things such as entertainment and communication now make use of mobile devices.

If you run an informational or business website and want it to satisfy your visitors, it's time you go mobile. Nowadays, there is practically no website that can be mobilized and there are numerous benefits for going mobile.

One of the main benefits of making your site mobile friendly is that it keeps visitors returning. Yes, it helps grow your loyalty base. Personally, for me, I read Nigerian news on the web by visiting several newspaper websites I know locally that also print in paper. Although I've bookmarked most of the local news sites that I know, it's only one of them that I visit most regularly and it's the one that fits my mobile phone's screen the best. So, for now, even though it's not really my number one newspaper on printed paper, it's my number one on electronic paper just because it's the most mobile friendly news website.

A second reason why your website should be mobile friendly is that it gives users a faster experience. Websites that have been properly mobilized can load faster than full page websites. Users are more likely to feel happy to return to your website if it loads faster on their screens. For people in slow internet countries like in Nigeria, this is an important factor because not many people would want to waste time getting information about a business, person or institution on their mobile phones. Although mobile phone networks and ISPs are reliable, their internet speed as fast as it is in developed nations like the USA and so people prefer websites that are lighter and so load faster. It also saves money for the user since people mostly pay for data based on how much they use on their devices. Slower loading or heavier websites tend to user more data and so cost the users more and that would not encourage them to keep visiting. This is one of the reasons why YouTube created a feather light version of it's website for users in slower internet countries and where data costs are much higher.

A third reason why you should make your website mobile friendly is to get you more customers and hence sales. If you are in the retail or consumer oriented business, the faster you are able to serve customers, the more sale you'd make and the less queues you'd create. Customers who shop online don't want to waste time in a queue or slow loading webpage. As more of your customers go mobile and use their devices for online shopping or making inquiries, they want a quicker response. Even if it's an online brochure of your products and services that you've uploaded to your website, you need to make it easier for customers to access it not just from their desktop computers but also on the fly, with their portable devices. Potential and existing customers can get your contact details and be able to connect with your by a voice call, SMS and even email all in a jiffy. That is the experience which a mobile friendly website could offer.

A 4th reason why your website should be mobilized is that it makes it easier for visitors to read. When you optimize your website not just for computer users but also for mobile phone and tablet screens, it makes it easier for your visitors to read the information you've published and hence know what you are really about and offering. I can't recall how many times I've visited the website of my church just to know the time schedule for weekly services only to find it so hard and frustrating to read and get the information I wanted. A mobile friendly websites should be easy to read on any mobile device or browser and should not only rely on the power of mobile browsers to mobilize it. It should be built with responsive design that adapts to the screen size of any device viewing it.

A 5th reason why you need to mobilize your website is in order to allow for easier interaction. A website may be ok for desktop users who may want to do things like vote, drop comments, send messages or participate in a poll but it may not offer the same functionality when mobile visitors view it. If the website was designed with mobile visitors in mind, it would also allow for that same functionality and allow them to interact with your website in about the same way desktop visitors do. My blog for instance gets more comments from mobile visitors than from desktop visitors and it would probably be the same if I were running a poll or allowing people to buy things online through a shopping cart that is mobile friendly. Your website should lose the ability for a interaction with mobile visitors just because it is not mobile friendly.

Comments:
Re: Why your website should be mobile friendly Posted by Adeniran on Friday July 17, 2015 at 6:57:12:

Good writeup but you did not tell us how to mobilize our sites. Pls I am interested. How can you help me.

Re: Why your website should be mobile friendly Posted by Felix Okoli on Friday July 17, 2015 at 6:57:12:

If you don't know how to do it, it's best you ask a website designer do it for you. You can mobilize a website using CSS or your website template.