Being (Mobile) Responsive

How often do you use your mobile? A few times a day? Every hour? You might be surprised to hear that, on average, a person reaches for their phone around 150 times a day. This may come as a surprise, I know it did for me, but then I began to think how many times I have mindlessly picked up my phone in the past - for example, if I'm ever in a queue I know the first thing I do is reach for me phone, even if I know there is nothing for me to really look at.  

Thinking about our mobile devices at little bit more, how do you use them? For calls and messages? Keeping up with family and friends on social media? Researching and buying everyday things? I'd probably guess a combination of the three; there is a growing increase of people looking for things they want to buy or researching services which they might require using their mobile phones. 

Browsing the internet on our portable devices is certainly on the rise, and not ready to stop anytime soon.  

When you are using a website on your mobile or tablet, you may find it frustrating when the design doesn't really work with your device, you might even stop using the website and look for a solution which is more friendly. If you are nodding along here, you are not alone, most people who use websites these days expect them to work on any device of the users choosing.  

With all of this in mind, it is extremely important for an organisation to ensure that their website is fully mobile responsive, meaning that it works on mobiles, tablets and desktops.  

For the most part, this is now industry best practice, and any web developers (agencies or freelancers) will ensure that your website works fully on mobile. If they don’t, they might not be as on the money as first thought.  

When it comes to creating a mobile responsive website, many designers will work to a 'mobile first' process, meaning that when they design the website, they plan how it will appear on a mobile before desktop or at the same time – as apposed to the previous process of making the desktop version change to work on mobile. This design process means that there doesn't need to be two different websites (one for mobile and one for desktop) ensuring that the website works in whatever way the user requires it, which is a much more efficient, cost effective process.  

If you work at, or run, an organisation which does not currently have a mobile responsive website, it may be having a large impact upon your usage, and this is only expected to have more of an impact going forward, mobile usage for websites has already overtaken desktop, and is set to surpass this even further by the end of 2018.  

As a leader in the technology industry, Google have been a forthcoming in responding to the needs of websites being responsive, a few years ago they began to credit websites which were mobile responsive, over ones which were not – meaning that your website may well have lost its ranking due to not being mobile optimised. They have recently taken this one step further through introducing mobile indexing, meaning that Google indexes (essentially registers) the mobile version of the website before the desktop version meaning that websites which are mobile ready may have a higher ranking as a results of this. In essence, if you are looking to improve your websites SEO, ensuring it is mobile responsive is one of the first places to start.  

As we explored above, using a website which doesn't work for you on mobile can be very frustrating, and in many cases, you may decide to leave the website and look for a friendlier alternative – this isn't just the case for you, this is how most other people feel also. As a business, the last thing you want to do is frustrate your potential clients, and so it is extremely important to ensure that your solution caters to their requirements and needs, and yes, this definitely means ensuring that they can easily use your website on their mobile.  

Let's face it, we are all guilty of judging a book by its cover – everyone has visited a website which isn't entirely functional or has a dated design and immediately been put off. Having an up to date website, which is appealing to users, and caters to modern technology is extremely important to ensure that your credibility is upheld - along with reducing the risk of people thinking you might not be in operation any more. Many people use websites as a first point of call to get information on an organisation, so it's extremely important that your website reflects your services in the best way possible.  

It has been found that, on average, charity donations are much higher online than they are offline meaning that ensuring your website is completely usable can really reap benefits for your organisation – not only will it help to build trust, it may also lead to a higher level of revenue.  

When thinking about how you interact with websites on your phone, you may generally find that you are searching for something specific, for example maybe a restaurant nearby or an emergency plumber? You are looking for something extremely quickly and you need answers right away, you are also probably much more likely to interact with businesses in this instance, as you need the information there and then. For this reason, it is extremely important that users are able to quickly and easily find out all of the information which they might require quickly and easily, ensuring that your website design is seamless on mobile is one of the quickest way you can ensure conversions.  

In summary, it is extremely important to ensure that your website works well on mobile devices; simply relying on a desktop centred website is not enough.  

If you are interested in hearing more about the benefits of ensuring that your website is fully mobile responsive, drop us a line on hello@wool.digital or give us a call on 0161 635 0045.