The Benefits of a Mobile-Friendly Website

From desktops we moved to smartphones to tablets and now to smartphones watches. We could club smartphones, tablets and smartwatches in one category because they are all essentially offshoots of the mobile revolution. Users today would much rather prefer to visit a website that is mobile optimized than one that is not. This is because an entire generation has become used to the mobile experience and rejects anything that falls short. With emerging economies in Asia and Africa leading the mobile growth path, this march is only beginning to gain strength.

In this article, we try to explain what has caused this sea-change in user preferences in just over half a decade. Here are the 5 reasons we think your website should be mobile-optimized:

1. Reduced Load Times

Firstly, the average user today expects a site to load as soon as he’s clicked it. Site URLs today are being widely shared on messaging and social networking platforms and therefore the urge for faster load times is even greater. Now, compare the loading times of a desktop site and a mobile-website. It should be clear as daylight to you that mobile-websites are much faster and since faster loading times form an important part in winning the trust of the customer, you get an A on the user experience front.

2. Your Site Won’t Be Taken Off Search Rankings (Yes!)

This is a warning to all those who are still thinking about going mobile. It is not about not being able to gain an advantage over mobile websites, it is about not being there at all. Google is not even listing sites that are not mobile-optimized. And, the more mobile friendly your site is, the greater chances it has to be listed higher on its rankings.

3. Simpler Navigation

It is a pain to navigate a website that is not optimized for mobile viewing on your smartphones. To be mobile friendly is to cut down on the number of navigation options on your standard site. Giving more importance to Call-to-action buttons like ‘Contact us’ or ‘Buy now’ will be much more useful than confusing the user (who is already constrained by limited space) with too many options that are essentially interconnected and can be replaced or done away with.

4. Better Engagement with The Customer

Today’s users prefer communication through images and videos rather than through text. A mobile website experience tends to be much more personalized than a desktop site. Whether it is swiping to sift through pictures in a gallery or looking at a restaurant in a map and immediately calling it, mobile offers you advantages that only it can. In essence a mobile-website shows that you mean business.

5. Lower Maintenance Costs

Building a mobile website means not having to duplicate your content or reformat it the way you do with a desktop site and also comparatively simpler debugging options. Though your front-end design may cost you a little, it is more than offset by the huge advantages that you get over a longer period of time.