How mobile-friendly websites are affecting your business?
As a small business owner, I find it really challenging to keep up with the rapid advances in technology. Most of my customers are making quick decisions based on the information that is readily available online. My objectives have always been to keep my message on the forefront of the competition using various online platforms.
The integral part of online marketing is the landing pages (or opt-in pages). All my marketing efforts end up on a single webpage that either conveys my messages or promotes my products and services. I have noticed that my marketing and social media campaigns are directly or indirectly sending prospects to my website. Therefore a fully functional website is an important part of my marketing campaigns.
Why I Need a Mobile-Friendly Website?
Web surfing behaviour has changed a lot in the past few years. As smartphones and tablets gain popularity more people are surfing the internet on small screens. According to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission 66% of Canadians use smartphones. The by-product of this shift in consumer behaviour has positioned the mobile-friendly feature at the core of the web development process.
Google uses the mobile-friendly feature as a ranking factor in its algorithm. Starting April 21, 2015, if your website is not mobile-friendly, Google will not list your website on the search engine result page (SERP).
Currently, there is a staggering number of business websites that are not mobile-friendly. If your website is mobile-friendly, you will have a competitive advantage over these businesses.
How Do I Check If My Website Is Mobile-Friendly?
The first step is to find out if your website passes the mobile-friendly test. Google offers this service for free. If you search “Mobile-Friendly Test – Google”, you will find a free Google tool to analyze your website for free.
How Do I Make My Website Mobile-Friendly?
There are 4 ways to make your website fully responsive on all devices,
- Web Developers: If you need to create a fully responsive custom website, web developers are the best option. This method saves a considerable amount of time but it might be expensive for some small business owners. If you have a limited marketing budget, you must be ready to spend a good portion of it to update your website. If you are a start-up company this should be your last option.
- Use Responsive Themes: For me, the best solution is to find a ready-made website template that is fully responsive and closely resembles my design needs. Most of these templates are easy to customize and do not require any coding background. WordPress offers many such templates for free. Premium templates start as low as $20.
- Install Plugin: If you use a WordPress platform, you can use various free and premium plugins to make your site fully responsive. Plugins are add-ons that perform a specific function to enhance the feature of your website. In this case, you want to find the plugin that will make your existing website fully responsive on all screen sizes.
- Freelance Service: The riskiest step is to find a freelancer who is ready to complete the task at a low price. Many out of country web developers are ready to exchange their service at an extremely low rate. I do not recommend this option because there is no guarantee that you will be 100% satisfied with the end product. If you decide to follow this option, do your research and find the vendors with positive reviews.
References:
Participation by wireless service providers in the National Public Alerting System. (2016, March 29). Retrieved from http://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2016/2016-115.pdf
Make sure your site’s ready for mobile-friendly Google search results. (n.d.). Retrieved July 30, 2016, from https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/6196932?hl=en