Studies have shown that 65 percent of the entire Australian population are proud owners of a smartphone, and an increasing number of them are using their smartphones as their primary device to access the Internet. These smartphone-browsing users spend roughly 1h 40m surfing the Net.

You may say, “Ok. You’ve shown me fancy statistics, but what does this have to do with my business?” All of those statistics point to the growing importance of having a mobile-friendly website. An article from The Sydney Morning Herald explains further:

“A common mistake is forcing customers to view your ordinary, desktop website on their tiny phone or device.

In all circumstances, your website must be optimised for whatever devices your customers are using (look to your web site’s data, or analytics, for this). This applies to both content display and interactivity.

The key action here for businesses is to make sure their mobile sites are easy for small device customers; it’s not just about getting the display right, but also making sure that they can interact with your site/brand quickly and easily.”

For every second that your website remains NOT mobile-friendly, you stand a greater chance of losing potential customers. So, if you are considering to redesign your website (which you should), here are a couple of reminders to help you:

Overall Size

The key feature of a mobile website is it should cater to users “on-the-go”. This means potential customers don’t have time to waste waiting for your website to load. In fact, most users will immediately give up on a website if it hasn’t fully loaded within a few seconds.

Having a professional Perth website design company create a mobile-friendly website for you is ideal because the site will be significantly smaller in size. This means faster loading time, preventing your potential customers from checking out your competitors. At the same time, the website allows potential customers to navigate your site quickly and efficiently, which could lead to more conversions.

Plugins

Does your website use a lot of Flash? If yes, you should avoid adding them to your mobile site. Most mobile browsers do not support Flash and other plugins. Forcing the issue will only result in improper loading of a page, and angry customers.

Despite the emphasis on mobile websites, you do not necessarily have to create a separate website for your mobile market. Asking an experienced website designer in Perth, like the ones from Viper Online, to apply a responsive web design on your current website will achieve the same results. With responsive web design, your website will adapt to the device accessing it, ensuring that your website will be displayed in the most efficient way.

(Source: Is your mobile site your enemy?; The Sydney Morning Herald; April 28, 2014)