The rise of smartphones and tablets has been just one more change in the way that the world works. The convenience of having information at the touch of a finger has created some issues for business owners. One main issue lately is whether or not a business needs to have a mobile-friendly WordPress site. A business needs a mobile-friendly WordPress website for many reasons.
It’s just a sign of the times and how we use technology today. One of the reasons a mobile-friendly WordPress website is necessary is because you want users that come across your website to easily read it. Seeing the website should be easy no matter what type of device they use.
Navigation Matters
Think about it this way. If you search and the website you select is hard to navigate, you’ll probably exit out of it. And then you will move onto the next website that may be easier to use. This is what happens when tablet and smartphone users that come across a website that isn’t optimized and mobile-friendly. Users could have a hard time finding the information they want. So they move on to your competitors. This means prospective customers that aren’t on computers could pass you by. And you’re losing out on all of this potential business for your company.
Find Your Business
Mobile-friendly websites are the way people find your business. There is an ever-increasing portion of the population that only uses smartphones and tablets for their Internet usage. They may not have access to a computer. Or they may feel like they need a smartphone or tablet because they can access everything they want with their mobile devices. These individuals may be the perfect customer for your business. They could be missing out on your services. And you could be missing out on more profits because your website is not mobile-friendly.
Social Media
Social media is another huge reason why having a mobile-friendly WordPress site is a must-have for your business. People who are big with social media often have apps, such as Facebook, on their phones. If they aren’t able to easily share information, a blog post, or just your website in general, they probably won’t share it with their social media network. This could be a huge loss in getting noticed by a large group of people that might not have come into contact with your business previously. Social media offers a lot of opportunities for free advertising. So it is a shame to let it go by the wayside when all you need to do to maximize your reach is to implement a more mobile-friendly site.
Shopping
More people are stepping away from making the majority of their online purchases on a laptop or desktop. People like the convenience of being able to order anything they like online from anywhere in the world. So many customers use their smartphones and tablets to make purchases. You could be missing out on these sales by not having your website optimized for these visitors. A business needs to reach them on-the-spot. And all the big online brands take advantage of having their site optimized to look good for customers. It is a good idea to follow suit yourself.
Google is another big reason to make your WordPress site more mobile-friendly. Google always tweaks its algorithms used by the search engine to populate search results. Recently, in 2015, Google created another algorithm that was nicknamed Mobilegeddon. And it forces the hand of websites to adapt to mobile or be lost in the search. What happens here is that a website that a mobile-friendly is prioritized in a search on a mobile device. A website that isn’t mobile-friendly drops in the rankings. You could find that your ranking drops considerably in a search on a smartphone if you’ve not optimized your site for mobile devices.
Local Searches
One thing to note is that this doesn’t affect your search engine ranking if the user is looking for you on a laptop or desktop. But fewer people are accessing the Internet as mobile devices become more popular and accessible. In January of 2015, there were about 184 million people that own smartphones. People that are out and about use their smartphones to help them get information about places they may want to visit.
Visibility
Local businesses, such as restaurants, bars, stores, mechanics and more, all want to be visible at the front of mobile web searches. This helps bring local customers right to their doors. A potential customer may be looking for hours, a menu, prices or some other information. This can influences whether or not they visit one local business over another. Not showing this information on the first page of a search can be devastating for these businesses. In fact, a survey found that 84 percent of users will use a search engine to find out information when making a local purchase. Your business needs to show up on these searches.
Getting Competitive
You may think that you’re not a local business as many of your customers are far-flung across the country. You might believe that it doesn’t matter if a person can find you in a local search, but that is not the case. Think of someone that is at a retail store looking at a product that they are considering purchasing. There are a wide variety of individuals that do research right there in the store to see if they are getting a good deal. You may sell a very similar product at a better price or quality level. And if the customer doesn’t see it when they do their research, they may just pick up the one at the local store rather than shop with you.
There are some factors that make a website mobile-friendly. They include being able to load quickly on a variety of devices, and having a responsive or adaptive design that can fit the screen of whatever device views it.
How Does It Look?
A responsive website is one that changes the way that the content looks to fit the size of the screen of the device. Think of how you can make your browser window smaller on your computer screen, and how it changes to fit the size of the space it fills. This is responsive web design. With adaptive web design, there are several web designs that adapt to the device. This is a more complex process, and most companies go with a responsive design over an adaptive one.
What About Two Sites?
Some businesses used to have two websites, with one meant for desktop users and the other meant for mobile devices. This method can be detrimental to your site. It may produce duplicate content, which is a problem for Google, and you may find that users aren’t finding the information they wanted on your mobile site.
When Bigger Is Better
Bigger buttons and fonts is another characteristic of a mobile-friendly design as it allows users to easily read and interact with your website. The smaller screens, and using a fingertip instead of a mouse, can make it harder to use websites that have little buttons and fonts.
You may wonder how mobile-friendly your website happens to be. One of the easiest ways to check it out is by performing a test on your site. Grab your cell phone and pull up your website. Look at it through the eyes of a visitor rather than someone familiar with your website.
Loading Times and More
Take some time to see how long it takes to load, how it looks, and how easily you can navigate to the different pages. Check to see how easy you can click on links or how easy you’re able to see the text. Then, do this again with a tablet and other-sized mobile devices. This can give you a bird’s eye view of what users see when they click on your listing in the search engine.
When In Doubt, Check It Out
If it doesn’t seem mobile-friendly to you, it’s time to get an overhaul of your WordPress site. The internet has opened up a whole new world of getting customers to you, but it’s also opened a vast ocean of dilemmas that may prevent customers from finding you in a sea of information. You may still not be sure if it’s friendly enough for mobile devices per Google’s definition. But luckily Google also happens to have a tool to check it for you.
You spend a lot of time trying to get potential customers and clients to find your business online. You don’t want to think that you may not be getting found just because of the way that your WordPress site is set up. Don’t despair if your WordPress website isn’t mobile-friendly. Pressed Solutions can help you with getting your WordPress site ready to be viewed favorably by Google’s new algorithm with a more responsive design.
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