Why Your Local Business Needs a Mobile-Friendly Website

Why does your business need a mobile-friendly website? Well, the question is a non-starter as far as mobile aficionados are concerned. Not only techies, any lay man on the street would tell you that he finds his mobile more comfortable to view and use than his desktop. This is because mobile is the on the move device, unlike a desktop and without doubt, cheaper to buy.

Around the world, businesses are leveraging the power of the mobile to reach out to newer audiences. This is because the highest growth in mobile usage is witnessed in the areas of the world with the highest population, with South Asia leading the mobile growth numbers.

How Local Businesses Can Leverage Mobile

Statistics show that close to two-thirds of Smartphone users search for local information on their mobiles. And what about conversion? Well, over half of those searches result in calls to the local businesses! This is an extremely effective scenario for local business owners as they ensure visibility without any banners, newspaper/print or TV ads.

But, only few businesses have actually utilised this great power of the web. Research shows that over 90% of the websites of small and medium business owners have not optimized their websites for mobile viewing. If you could just pause for a second here and think about the opportunity that beckons you. There is so much demand from the users but so few SMBs have their websites optimized for the mobile.

You cud be among the 10% if you can find the right company to build your mobile website. A company that has the competence and experience required to take your business to the next level. This is not difficult as you just need to find companies that have a history of satisfying clients by performing within their budgets, and your job is done!

If you want your website to be mobile-friendly, you can reach us at http://www.openwavecomp.com/web_design.html

What You Need To Focus On In Responsive Design

Responsive is the mantra that’s on everybody’s lips. But to make a website responsive you need to identify which content is going to take precedence and which aspect of your website should be accorded priority. We take a look at what are the issues to be looked after when you want to make a website responsive.

-> Responsive websites need to be prioritized carefully as visitors may have limited time and visual space due to the device they’re using or their environment.

-> Extensive User Research: Researching the audience helps to find out how they view the website. Here you need to find out:

-> How visitors use your website, including how much time they spend on it, how they read and view the content, how far away they are from the screen, and so on.

-> What sorts of devices they use most often to view the website, and which devices they may use in the near future.

-> Where they would view your website.

Different Layouts For Different Devices: Usually, you’ll want to provide the most information or website content for the size/resolution of the device that the visitor is using; keep in mind the viewing distance on large devices like TVs however. Grid-based layouts simplify this task by providing different numbers of columns for blocks of content depending on the device. For example, a website may use 5 columns for its layout on large devices, 3 columns on tablets, and 1 column on a regular phone.

Automatic Adjusting Of The Layout For The Different Devices: A combination of CSS and JavaScript can be used to detect the device that the website is being used on, and it’s specifications (such as if it supports the Flash or the latest version of HTML), and adjust the website accordingly. CSS Media Queries are particularly useful for determining the resolution of the device.

Ensuring That That Media Is Appropriately Sized: Responsive websites typically try to display smaller images and videos for mobile devices like phones because phone screens are typically smaller than computer or TV screens, and because phone are often used with limited-bandwidth data contracts. This has become less of a problem, however, as smartphones have increasingly higher-resolution screens. In addition, modern browsers often use pre-fetching that makes it difficult to send a particular-sized image to the device.

Why Small Businesses Need To Get Their Websites Mobile-Optimized

Mobiles have literally penetrated every aspect of our lives today. Roughly half the internet users are accessing the web via mobile. As more and more users across Asia go mobile, how can your business afford to stay behind and not have a mobile-optimized website? That’s why we list out why and how mobile-optimized can help shore up your sales figures and help create immense value for your business.

 

How Mobile-Optimized Website Help

 

1) Easy to Read - A mobile website will have very little, if any, reason to scroll left and right. All text will be contained within the mobile device's screen and will be big enough to read without needing to zoom in. This will make finding information about your business (such as the menu, special deals, location, etc) easy to find. This is of great necessity for a small business.

2) Automatic Redirect - If you already have a desktop website, if the server detects that someone is trying to view your website on a mobile device, it will automatically redirect the user to the mobile version, usually without the user even knowing it. The mobile version will be located in a sub-domain of your main site. For example, if your normal website is www.mybusiness.com, the mobile version could be m.mybusiness.com, and this would automatically be displayed. This means you need to maintain only one website instead of two, a vital advantage for small businesses.

3) Rich Features - There are a number of useful features on a good mobile website specifically for the mobile user that make it even more beneficial for your business. The most useful is a "Click to Call" button, which is simply a button that is displayed prominently on the mobile site. The user can simple click or tap the button to call your business right away. For a desktop website, the user would have to either memorise your phone number (if they can even find it!), then enter the number manually. A "Click to Call" button makes it easier and they are more likely to call your business

4) Relevant Information Alone Displayed - On a desktop website, there will be heaps of information and text that people can read. However, on a mobile website, too much information will be harder to sift through. Therefore, only the information relevant to the mobile user should be displayed. As an example, a mobile user trying to find a good restaurant isn't interested in seeing a website that has something different from what he searched for.

As people need the information quickly, they probably only want to know where the restaurant is, their menu, any special items, and most importantly, how to contact them (click-to-call). This means the website will be smaller, but more relevant information will displayed.