Why do you need a mobile responsive website?

We’ve entered a truly digital age. More and more people are choosing to browse and shop online than ever before, with a whopping 87% of UK consumers having bought something online in the last 12 months. And with our lives becoming increasingly cluttered with work, appointments and leisure activities, it’s little wonder that many people are turning to the convenience of the internet to get their shopping fix.

With our lives being busier than ever before, we’re swapping our desktop computers for mobile devices that we can use on the go. That’s why it’s absolutely essential that your website is fully responsive on mobile.

More than half the world now uses a smartphone, with over 60% of online searches now made using a mobile phone or tablet. According to a recent report from Hitwise, some sectors get 72% of their online traffic through mobile devices.

Nobody wants to visit a site on their mobile or tablet, only to find text overlapping, videos not loading and product photos not matching up to their description. In fact, most users who click onto a non-mobile responsive site will most likely click on that ‘back’ button in seconds. This means that not only have you lost that customer, you’ve lost anyone who they tell about their shocking user experience.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that many users may come to your site using social media, which is used more on mobile devices. Anyone who has reached your site via social media will be fully expecting your site to be fully optimised for mobile.

Designing your website for a better user experience on mobile

To give your customers a better experience when using your website on their mobile devices, it’s important to factor this into your design. Think about how your site will look on a mobile or tablet, and test each page on your own mobile to check that it looks as good, and is as easy to navigate, as you think it is.

Try to avoid large chunks of text. This mistake is especially common in blog posts. It may look alright on desktop computer, but view it on a smaller screen and you run the risk of users getting fed up of it and leaving the site. As a guide, your font size must be at least 14px, so that mobile users can read it without having to zoom in.

To maximise user experience, the bigger the buttons the better. Try to keep your buttons at a size of at least 44px by 44px, as recommended by the experts over at Apple. We’ve all been on a site with buttons so small you end up pressing the one next to it by mistake – they might look neater on a desktop, but they’re a pain in the backside on mobile.

The ‘mobile first’ approach

When designing your website, consider using the ‘mobile first’ approach. This means that you specifically design the key areas of your site to work great on mobile, and add in less important parts on your desktop computer later on.

This approach means that you’re able to meet the user’s requirements in all aspects of their experience. It’s important to remember that many mobile devices are also frequently used with a lower connection speed than their desktop counterparts, and quite often on a limited data plan. So it’s important to factor this into your design process.

Try to avoid using large images that will take longer to load and/or use more data for mobile users, and remember that any video content longer than a few seconds will eat into your mobile users’ data.

I get most of my customers through word of mouth, is user experience on my website really that important?

Even if you get most of your customers through word of mouth, it’s still important to have a website that works well on mobile. After all, you don’t want to miss out on any valuable customers!

If you don’t want to spend a long time factoring in mobile user experience into your website, the most important point is to ensure that your site is easy to navigate on a mobile device. Make sure that any call-to-actions lead your users to their desired goals. For example, on each product page there should be a clear and easily accessible ‘buy’ button.

Before you built your site, you probably did a significant amount of research into what your audience / customers are looking for in a website. Revisit this when optimising your site for mobile to get a better understanding of how your users will want to navigate your site.

Here at Tecmark, we specialise in creating mobile-friendly sites that are designed around what your customers want – meaning that you can focus on the day-to-day running of your business.

We’re not all flash statistics and false promises. We build the solid foundations of your website to ensure it stands the test of time, meaning that it can be added to when necessary in the future. We build websites that not only look the part, but are created by experts with a solid background of sound technical knowledge.

The benefits of having a good user experience

If users have a good user experience when they visit your sites, this will help improve your ranking on Google. This means that your site will appear higher up on the list of Google search results for specific search terms. In fact, Google has recently moved to a mobile first indexing module, so if your site doesn’t perform well on mobile devices your ranking may be seriously affected.

It may also improve your site conversion rates, meaning that the amount of sales or engagement made through your site increases.

If you’d like to have a chat with one of our experts about creating a kickass mobile responsive site, get in touch today. Helping you get the most from your website is our bread and butter, so we’d be delighted to chat with you about your requirements.

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