The importance of building and running a mobile friendly website is self-explanatory to most. It has been some time since mobile web traffic overtook conventional desktop traffic in many key regions worldwide.
Nevertheless, there are still millions of small and large businesses worldwide that continue to overlook (or ignore) the importance of mobile friendliness. For those still on the fence, here is a quick reminder of seven important reasons why a mobile-friendly website is essential in 2021:
- Your audience is primarily mobile
Irrespective of the type of business you run, chances are the vast majority of the people you are targeting use mobile devices. More than 60% of all online traffic is now mobile, so it simply makes sense to focus on mobile users.
- It is essential for building trust
Incredibly, almost the same proportion of web users (57%) said that they would neither use nor recommend a business that offers a poor mobile browsing experience. Unless you cater to the needs of mobile visitors, you can kiss goodbye to more than half of all potential customers than head your way.
- Your competitors could gain an edge
Bear in mind that if you do not focus heavily on being mobile friendly for the benefit of your customers, there is a good chance your competitors already do. In which case, they could be well on their way to gaining the edge, simply by fulfilling the basic requirements and preferences of mobile web audiences.
- It can increase visibility and exposure
Major search engines like Google continue to show preference to websites that provide the best possible user-experience for mobile audiences. If you intend to climb the rankings to a prominent position, you need to take mobile optimisation seriously. Otherwise, you will be passed over and your closest competitors will continue to outrank you.
- Increasingly short attention spans
These days, you have no more than around 3 seconds to win over new visitors to your website, before they head elsewhere and never return. This means ensuring that irrespective of the device used to access your website, your pages load near-instantaneously and with total consistency. People are simply not willing to tolerate sluggish and slow-loading sites – even when accessing the web from relatively rudimentary mobile devices.
- The opportunity to leverage impulse purchases
An astonishing proportion of online sales come by way of impulse purchases, which those making them had no real intention of making. People ‘dip’ in and out of the web for a few minutes here and there to pass the time throughout the day – precisely where a streamlined and enjoyable mobile browsing experience can make all the difference.
- A fool-proof long-term investment
Last but not least, mobile preference among web users is something that is only going to accelerate indefinitely over the coming years and decades. Hence, an investment in mobile-friendliness for your website represents a fool-proof long-term investment in the performance of your business as a whole.
