Maybe clothes do not make the man, but mobile will certainly make your website. If your website does not set up well or look good in mobile devices, you might be leaving money on the table.
Mobile devices account for 57% of online traffic compared to 43% for desktop. Globally, smartphones alone account for 52.2% of online traffic.
Consumers will depend on their mobile devices, particularly the smartphone, to account for their daily needs. Whether they are searching for products or services, they will use their mobile device to find the information they need.
Why Your Website Should Look Good For Mobile Users
How would you feel if you clicked on a website from your mobile phone and realized you had to zoom in so you can read the content? Not only will you have to zoom in, but you will also have to move the screen around in order to navigate the page.
It is certainly an inconvenience and will not contribute to a great user experience. What will be your course of action? Chances are you will click out of the website and search for another one that will set up better on your mobile phone.
Now, imagine that was your website. What would your site visitors do? Probably follow the same course of action as you did: Click out and look for another website.
Your competitor’s website.
First impressions last. If discomfort and inconvenience were the impressions created by the site visitor’s first experience with your website, it is possible you will never see him/her again.
It is not enough for your website to look good on a desktop, a laptop or a tablet. Likewise, or rather, more importantly, your website should look good while viewed on a smartphone.
Investing in a website is a step in the right direction. It will help market and promote your business; its products and services. However, unless it is mobile responsive, you will not be able to stay ahead, much less, keep up with competitors that have mobile responsive websites.
A mobile responsive website is one that sets up clearly and seamlessly on the screen of various mobile devices. Keep in mind that not all screen sizes of mobile devices have the same dimensions. The screen size will have an effect on how your web page appears on the mobile device.
A good example is your Facebook home page. On a PC desktop, the layout covers a wider area. Your contacts list in Messenger sets up on the right side of the screen, the news feed is in the middle, while on the far left of the home page, you will find the different icons to access your settings, groups, and features.
Facebook will appear differently on your smartphone. The home page sets up vertically. Your Messenger contacts are located on top of your news feed. The icons do not appear and can only be accessed by clicking on the button with the 3 horizontal lines located on the top right corner,
If you open Facebook on a tablet or a laptop, it will set up differently depending on the size of your screen.
Mobile responsiveness is no longer an option. It is a must. Google has made mobile responsiveness a prerequisite in the quest for higher search rankings. The search engine giant has included it as a ranking factor in its algorithm as far back as 2014.
The reason, of course, is User Experience (UX). Google is big on UX. Its ranking algorithm has periodically undergone changes in order to drive home the point to website owners that they should prioritize UX.
We discussed the benefits of having a mobile responsive website in our article, “Why Your Website Needs Responsive Design”. However, it is worth emphasizing the value of having a mobile responsive website from the perspective of consumers.
First, mobile consumers behave differently. They are more impatient and compared to PC desktop users, tend to react on impulse. The following key statistics support our observation:
- 57% of visitors will abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load.
- 30% will not push through with the purchase if the website is not mobile responsive.
- Mobile consumers spend more money per purchase compared to PC desktop users.
Second, mobile consumers respond more favorably to brands that have a mobile responsive website. Mobile consumers tend to multi-task. If they can do everything from the palm of their hand they would.
Mobile responsive websites make multitasking easier. Thus, it creates trust and fosters a stronger relationship with the consumer.
3 Reasons Why Your Website Does Not Look Good On Mobile Devices
Even if you have a mobile responsive website, you still have to check if it sets up or looks good on various mobile devices.
It is possible that the resolution of your website’s text and images will not come out clear. Some of the content that is available on the desktop or laptop versions may not appear on smartphones or tablets.
How did this happen?
Your website designer assured you that your website was mobile responsive. In fact, you were present when the website designer ran some tests before turning over the website to you.
The first thing that you need to do is to breathe and relax! There are perfectly good explanations on why a supposedly mobile responsive website does not set up properly on a mobile device.
1. New Technology Demands New Information
Every few months a technology company will bring out its latest version of its smartphone, tablet, or laptop. Each company will try to outdo each other by developing mobile devices that have the best cameras, most-advanced features, and most compact designs.
Cases in point are the latest versions of the iPhone from Apple and the Galaxy from Android. The built-in cameras of both smartphones capture images in amazing quality. You would think the pictures were taken by a professional photographer’s digital SLR camera.
As these smartphones continue to press forward with higher and more intricate resolution, consequently, these mobile devices will demand more information from your website. Your website designer can fix this by rewriting your site’s programming code.
2. Content is Not Optimized
Even if your website structure and its text look good on your smartphone, your logo and the images used may appear hazy or blurry. It is possible that these images were not optimized to accommodate screens of mobile devices.
If you are familiar with iPhone version 8 and the iPhone X, these models use a retina display. The screens on these phones look gloriously sharp. To do this, Apple jam packs at least 4 pixels in an area that would only accommodate 1 pixel in a normal desktop.
Then Apple would proceed to double the resolution for text and graphics so that it would not look small onscreen. If your graphic is smaller compared to how it is shown on the screen, it will look “stretched out” and blurry.
A quick-fix solution would be to use images that were designed to accommodate mobile phones with retina displays.
3. Type of Media is Not Supported by Mobile Browser
Assuming your website loads successfully on a mobile device but some of your content is missing, it could be that the type of media you are using is not supported by the mobile browser.
A good example is Flash which is often used for animations and video-based content. Flash is not supported by a number of smartphones.
If your website designer incorporated Javascript and JQuery components for the desktop version of your website so that it would become more interactive, these elements would not display on mobile devices.
Conclusion
If you want to find out how your website looks like for mobile users, run a series of tests yourself.
Visit your website using your smartphone. Give an honest assessment of your experience. Go to the different pages of your website and evaluate how fast the images and text loads.
Ask yourself if the quality of the images; its overall resolution is good enough to impress the site visitors. Check if all the features and content that are available in the desktop version can be found in your smartphone.
From your smartphone, run the same tests on a tablet. Don’t stop there! Borrow a friend’s smartphone. Make sure it is different from your smartphone. Apply the same tests and evaluate your website’s performance.
If you are not satisfied with how your mobile responsive website sets up or looks on mobile devices, give us a call or drop us an email.
We will give you a free 30-minute consultation. We will take a look at your website and see what can be done to improve its performance on mobile devices.
