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Are You Mobile Optimized?

by Jodee Goodwin

These days, with connectivity pretty much universal, a smart business needs to give serious consideration to having a mobile optimized website for smartphones and tablets.

There are several advantages to being mobile optimized. To start, it can be an invaluable way to strengthen your firm’s online presence. As you’ve probably personally experienced, there’s a great advantage to being able to access a website from any device, at any time and from any place. This quest for convenience is only bound to increase as more and more people turn to tablets and smartphones to replace laptops and desktop computers.

Expecting users to interact with your desktop site on mobile can affect your business. Google studies show that slightly over 60% of users will not return to a website if they had a bad mobile experience there. Also, Google is encouraging companies to improve their websites’ mobile experience by making mobile website optimization a ranking factor in mobile search.

Creating a positive mobile web experience can have a significantly positive impact on ROI. In fact, it’s been shown that 74% of smartphone shoppers make a purchase online, in-store, or on their phones as a result of smartphone shopping. And, an even higher percentage of smartphone users (88%) who look at websites for location information take action within a day.

With such supporting data on conversions, it seems clear that your business should provide a quality mobile optimized site experience to encourage users to connect with your services.

There are two variations for mobile: responsive websites and mobile specific websites. Responsive websites are designed specifically to provide an optimal viewing experience across a wide range of devices, from desktop computers, to smartphones and tablets. With responsive website design, the layout is adapted automatically to the viewing environment and is based entirely on the desktop site. The benefit is updates are made in one place and are automatically carried across each device.

Mobile specific websites route mobile users to a separate dedicated website. Since mobile sites are independent they can use different graphics, content and other elements as needed. Mobile websites are separate from the main site and require updates in two places.

Contact The Creative Alliance to learn how your website can become mobile optimized.