Approximately 77% of Americans depend on their smartphone for nearly everything, from browsing to making online purchases.  However, all these mobile users have one thing in common: they hate websites that don’t perform well on their devices.

Today, the success of any business depends greatly on the responsiveness of their business website. Websites with mobile-friendly web design can open up new compatible opportunities to current and future customers.

In a similar vein, customers often tire of visiting websites that have long load times. TruConversion says that websites with non-mobile-first designs can receive only 20% gains while a mobile-friendly page can generate up to 30%.

This means businesses with a high number of unresponsive webpages make huge losses since users get frustrated and leave the business website.  The frustration of a mobile user has a direct impact on your sales and business performance.

Today, we look at mobile website experience and how it can affect your business. But before that, let’s have a glimpse of some key information about the mobile website experience.

The mobile website experience

61% of consumers are more willing to purchase from mobile-friendly websites

Mobile-friendly websites play a key role in helping businesses earn conversions. Famous companies like Amazon and Walmart recognize that consumers tend to buy things on the go and expect a hassle-free purchase process. 

That’s why these companies have designed mobile-friendly websites that make the checkout process faster and efficient. Your own website needs to have a positive experience. It doesn’t have to be Amazon, but as long as it is presented as a credible website that is modern, performs well, and is trustworthy of handing over a credit card number, that will get you farther than most independent eCommerce sites.

Consumers are always willing to buy what you offer, but you need to have a website that makes it easier for them to buy your products via their phone and mobile devices. We embrace the mantra, “make it easy for customers to do business with you.” With your website, that means get people to the content they want to see as quickly as possible, and let them take the actions you value.

Approximately 57% of internet users won’t recommend a business with a poor website design on mobile.

Non-mobile responsive websites are naturally poorly designed since they don’t provide the users with the optimal experience they desire. When an online experience is clunky, users are prone to share their negative reviews with others. It’s incredibly frustrating to go on a website on a mobile device, and have to pinch and zoom, then side scroll back and forth to see everything on the page. On top of that, if it’s an eCommerce site, an outdated design can also translate to credibility issues with payment – can you truly trust that the payment processing is safe if the rest of the site is seemingly out of date?

About 85% of adults prefer a website that offers a better experience on mobile than on desktop

If you have a website that users have to zoom or pinch on their mobile to view, you’ll surely lose them before the first click. Mobile users prefer a website that adjusts to the pixel of the device it’s being viewed on.

Every business owner should aim to create a website that fills the screen of every device in a legible, interesting, and easy to navigate way.

Over 38% of users will stop interacting with a website if its content or layout is unattractive

If your website design or navigation is unattractive or difficult to use, there’s a high chance that you may fail to convert the website visitor into a lead.

Mobile-first design and its importance

Mobile-first design is not the same as responsive design, so don’t confuse the two. A responsive design deals with the automatic adjustment of a website to the screen size of any device. While the mobile-first design is a website design concept that deals with upgrading from a mobile level to a laptop or desktop version.

It’s important to consider mobile-first design, especially if you’re struggling to compress or remove information after designing your website for larger screens.

If this is the case, then it means that some of your content will be left out, and the user will have much less experience. Or your content will get smaller on mobile and appear cramped, seriously affecting your customer’s experience.

However, if you opt for a mobile-first design, it means that you’ll start off small and condense your information down at the beginning of your website, making it easier to add more content to your screen as your space increases.

Importance of mobile-first design

  1. Websites optimized for mobile improves conversions and generates more leads.
  2. Mobile-first design improves your site speed, placing you in a top position on Google SERPs. It also guarantees that your site will be responsive, which allows customers on any platform can access it.
  3. If you’re worried that your web images won’t load on smartphones, then you need a mobile-first design.
  4. A mobile-first design makes a business website more modern, useful, and straightforward.  It compresses and simplifies content down into more manageable chunks.
  5. It’s much easier to progress from a simple design and functionality to complex solutions.  Once you’ve implemented a mobile design, you’ve already handled the main functionality of your business website. After that, all you need is to add a feature for the larger devices.
  6. Mobile-first focuses on minimalism and simplicity. Your customers will love your relevant content.

Final Thoughts

With the global pandemic this year, the timeline for the proliferation of mobile technology greatly sped up. We saw this with record breaking amounts of online sales, and more local businesses adopting, “buy online” options, and delivery services from their website. This has been a great differentiator in how businesses adapt and survive, or dig their heels in and close the doors.

There is a natural course of evolution with business practices, especially with the use of technology. There is always the natural progression of innovation, but we have also seen several major events, especially since 2000, that have made large fundamental changes in how business is conducted, from 9/11, to the 2008 recession, and now with the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of people have been using their mobile devices to browse online. A drastic shift in eCommerce has made an already lucrative business model even more essential. People not only now expect an excellent mobile experience, they also expect greater options to accommodate the shift in contactless delivery, and receiving their services remotely.

There really shouldn’t been any debate on, “should I make a mobile-friendly website?” The answer, backed by overwhelming data for several years, is an overwhelming, “yes.” If you haven’t done so yet, take the leap. It will be well worth it.

Further Reading

TruConversion – How Page Load Time Can Impact Your Conversions

Hubspot – How Responsive Web Design Works

Kinsta – Web Design Best Practices For Your Next Website Project

Forrester – Twenty Mobile Trends for 2020