Importance of a Mobile-Friendly Website

There are a variety of reasons why having a mobile-friendly website will benefit a business in today's climate. This blog will take you through the reasons why you should have a mobile friendly website and reasoning why I believe a responsive design website is best.

To begin, why should a business have a mobile website?  Well, we're moving away from the tradition of using desktop computers to look at websites, and moving towards a mobile way of life. A lot of people now look at a lot of things on their smartphones or tablets for convenience. This is known as the post-pc era. Scott (2011: pg 204) stated that organisations without a mobile-friendly website will miss out on opportunities to sell their products. From my own experiences, I would agree with this statement. I do not enjoy having to zoom in and scroll left and right to try and find a product. It it much easier for a website to fit to my mobile phone screen and just have to scroll up and down. Mobile contributed £18bn in retail sales in 2013 (Ratcliff, 2013), another reason why a business would benefit from a mobile-friendly website. If you do not have a mobile-friendly website then you are more likely to find your customers deciding to do business with your competition, who do have a mobile friendly website. 

Now you have found the reasons that you should have a mobile-friendly website, you now have to decide what type of website you will go for. Now, Ganji (2013) details four different ways to design your mobile website. A basic one which just details basic information about your business in a very basic format. Another form of mobile website is a customer mobile site. This is a specific mobile built website with e-commerce features. The next type of mobile site you could have is a responsive design. This type of website reacts to what device you are using. The last type of mobile website design is going for a full native app. Something that is permanent on a phone, that will need to be downloaded on to the phone (I know you all know what an App is really). 

From analysing the four types and looking further into certain types, I believe a responsive design website is the best option for a multi-channel business. As i briefly described earlier, a responsive design website scales the website to the device it is being used on. This give the business flexibility over all devices, e.g. mobile phones, tablet and desktop. Even though there is a decline in the use of desktop pc's in today world, there still are a large amount of people who use desktop. Below is a graph that shows the use of multi-platform in retail. (source: Bosomworth, 2014)

This diagram shows the use of PC is declining, but the use of multi-platforms is increasing. This trend seems to be something that will go on seeing as mobile is becoming an ever-more popular form of shopping for consumers due to ease. 

Francis (2014) stated that Google seems to favour responsive design websites, so this would benefit any business in the way of SEO and Mobile SEO. It would also combat the high bounce rate of a business as the consumer would prefer a website that scales to the device they are using, and not having to navigate themselves via zooming etc, increasing customer satisfaction. 

To conclude, mobile is of increasing importance to businesses as it is becoming the preferred platform for consumers, due to the convenience. To ensure customer experience is at its highest over all platform, Responsive design website would be the best mobile design, in my eyes. 

Sources used:

Bosomworth, D. (2014) Mobile Marketing Statistics 2014 [Online] <http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/> [Accessed 23/04/2014]

—Francis, H. (2014) 4 SEO benefits of Responsive Web design [Online] <http://www.searchenginejournal.com/4-seo-benefits-responsive-web-design/92807/> [Accessed 07/04/2014] 

Ganji, A. (2013) 'comparing four types of mobile websites. Which is right for you?' [Online] <http://www.neonrain.com/blog/comparing-four-types-mobile-sites-which-right-you> [Accessed 23/04/2014]

Ratcliff, C. (2014). ‘Mobile influenced £18bn of UK retail sales in 2013’ [Online] <http://econsultancy.com/blog/64060-mobile-influenced-18bn-of-uk-retail-sales-in-2013> [accessed 23/04/2014]

SCOTT, D. M. (2011) THE NEW RULES OF MARKETING AND PR JOHN WILEY & SONS: NEW JERSEY