If your business solely operates in the mobile space, then there are many reasons to consider getting a mobile website. In 2014, smartphones are being used more than ever before, and each smartphone is a handheld portal into the web. However, standard desktop websites do not offer the same lightning fast experience as a mobile optimized web page does, and for this reason and many others, it’s incredibly important to cater for the percentage of your customers that do use the mobile web, because there’s a big chance that a large portion of them do. Below we’ve listed some of the biggest benefits to owning a mobile website for an online business or eCommerce site.
Using Built-In Mobile Tools
If you sell products or services online, then you may be able to make use of the various mobile tools that each modern day smartphone comes packed with. For example, by grabbing a user’s GPS information you can quickly determine a user’s location, which in turn would mean the user would not need to enter in as much information about their home address and this can speed up the order process.
If you have a call center or contact email, users will also be able to click on your email or phone number to immediately get into contact with you, instead of writing it down for future reference. Features like these are designed to make browsing the web faster, and the more seconds you cut off of the average experience on your mobile website, the better.
An Overall Smoother Experience
If you stick to just a desktop website, smartphone users will still be able to access your website, but it may not display correctly, and customers may have trouble navigating your desktop website from a smartphone. Another issue is that desktop websites tend to have issues with loading on slower mobile connections, and while 4G and 3G is now widely available, some customers may only have access to a very slow GPRS connection.
A mobile website would trim down on all of the excess content, and provide only the material that is directly needed – this makes a fast loading, mobile optimized experience.
You may even consider choosing a mobile application over a mobile website, and whilst there are benefits for choosing this route, one large issue still arrives – the mobile industry is fragmented, and there are various different operating systems, and dozens of different display sizes, which means you’ll have to develop and optimize an app for multiple operating systems to reach your customer base. A mobile website will offer a unified portal that can be accessed from any device on any mobile operating system.
Expanding Your Customer Base
Many people have thrown away their old PCs and laptops and are only left with smartphones as their main connection to the internet. If you don’t provide a mobile optimized experience to these users, then you may be losing out on business. Customers that are limited to their mobile devices may look for businesses that have an easy to access mobile website instead of going to you if you only have a desktop site.
You may also find that owning a mobile website for your business may even bring in more new customers – not all businesses have adapted to the sudden increase in mobile handset usage worldwide, so if you do provide a nice mobile portal for those that are bound to their smartphones, customers may choose you over other less well adapted businesses.
Staying ahead of the curve will also help to make your brand stand out from others in the industry and paint a professional image of your business’ name.
Capturing Attention Quickly
We mentioned before that a mobile website will help to speed up loading times, but it will also make browsing and navigating your website a whole lot easier. If you hire a group of professionals to build you a mobile website, then you’ll end up with a website that provides customers with everything they could need as soon as the page loads.
The mobile web is limited when it comes to display size, but professional mobile website designers can ensure that your website looks attractive and remains as functional as possible to grab the attention of your visitors as soon as they hit your web page.
If the success of your business relies heavily on online connections with your customers, then it’s incredibly important to display yourself as best you can online, and one of the ways to do this is with a mobile website. Just like with a well decorated store front, your online business will look approachable and easy to deal with if you have a website that looks and works smoothly on whatever device a user can access the internet on.