What you will learn: Why your website must be mobile-friendly at all costs.Who should read this article: Company and marketing leadership.
Desktop-only Websites Are Dinosaurs
If you’re old enough to remember, at some moment in the late 1990s we reached a tipping point: Companies without websites were dinosaurs. If they weren’t already extinct, their days were numbered.
Flash forward to today: Companies without responsive websites (websites that automatically adjust to display optimally on desktops, tablets and mobile phones) are the endangered species. Why?
- Mobile Internet usage has been exploding. All the way back in February 2014, mobile Internet usage exceeded PC usage for the first time.
- In 2015, mobile Internet usage is expected to consistently top PC Internet usage in just about every time zone and on every continent.
- In terms of SEO, Google rewards mobile-friendly websites – so much so it devotes an entire section of its Webmasters site to creating and optimizing them.
Lead Generation: The Big Advantages of a Responsive Website
Companies with desktop-only websites shortchange themselves in two big ways: First, they miss opportunities to convert oceans of mobile users; second, they allow mobile-friendly competitors to shove them down the page for Google organic search results.
But tapping into the mobile-user market is more than just a defensive maneuver. Mobile users are engaged users, so a responsive website dramatically improves conversions and increases sales leads. Consider:
- The virtues of simplicity: Responsive website design virtually forces companies to keep their websites simple. Many desktop-inspired designs are overly complicated in terms of design, content and navigation. All this complexity annoys users and creates barriers to conversion.
- Impulse inquiries: On a mobile device, users can phone you with a couple of easy screen taps from any page of your website (provided the navigation is set up properly). Users love easy, so this opens the door for more phone inquiries – the very best kind.
In many niches, the majority of competitors have not yet built responsive websites, either because they are unaware of the advantages, or because they are not ready to build. Thus, by going responsive now, a company gains a meaningful competitive advantage in SEO and sales lead generation. Create distance from competitors now, and they will be chasing you for years trying to catch up.
Contact Straight North to talk about a new responsive website.Call us at 855-883-0011 or request a quote online.