Thursday, May 30, 2013

WARNING! You Could Be Losing 52% of Your New Customers and Not Even Know It

According to a study done by Google, 52% of users said that a bad mobile web experience made them less likely to engage with a company. They just leave the website and never return. But unfortunately you do not even know about it. Think about the last time you were home watching tv and saw a commercial for something that interested you, and in the commercial their website was given. What did you do, go to your computer turn it on then visit the site? Of course not you picked up your smartphone from the table beside you, and went to the website right from your chair. Now you are on the site but what do you see? The company's main website, that is slow to load, hard to read, you have to pinch and scroll to read it and some of the pictures or videos will not load. You get frustrated, your show comes back from commercial you leave the site and do not return.

Most websites today are not mobile optimized, which causes your website to not work properly on a mobile device. This is a major problem because it is estimated that by 2014 mobile internet usage will overtake desktop internet usage. In that same study by Google 67% of mobile users say that when they visit a mobile optimized site, they're more likely to buy that site's product or service. So it is vital for your business that you have a mobile optimized site. There are several key things your site must have to provide a good mobile experience for your visitors:
  • The site must be quick to load - 50% of mobile internet users will only wait 5 seconds for a site to load before they leave.
  • The site must have clear and simple navigation - Most people are in a hurry when using a mobile site they want to be able to find what they are looking for quickly and easily.
  • Contact Information - This is very important! Your business contact info must be easy to find and must be set up as click to action. Click to action is a way to program the site so that when the info is clicked, the appropriate action is taken on the phone. so if they click on your phone number it opens the dialer on the phone and calls you automatically.
  • The site must be thumb friendly - Mostly everything on a smartphone is done with the thumbs so you site must be easy to use with the thumbs.
There are two main options for getting your mobile optimized website, the first option is to have a separate mobile website designed, and use a mobile redirect script to connect it to your main website. The mobile version of your site is created on a subdomain of your site. If someone enters the subdomain url they get the mobile site. When someone enters your main domain url, the site detects what type of device you are using and if it is a mobile device it gives them the mobile site. If it is computer it gives them the main site.
The second option is to use a responsive design template on your website or a plugin. Using this option the site detects the type of device you are using and shrinks your site to fit the screen. The plugin is a template that gets loaded when using a mobile device.
Choosing the best option for your business is highly dependent on your individual business and current website design.
To learn more about mobile marketing visit my site at http://trevorlang.com. There you can get your free copy of The Mobile Marketing Game Plan Report.