In 2020, an estimated 81.6% of people in the United States were using a smartphone.
That’s a whopping 270 million users. Global estimates have stated that there are more active mobile connections (devices connected to mobile networks) than people – ~10 billion connections vs. ~7 billion people. With the rise of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the new challenges presented for consumers and businesses worldwide, brick-and-mortar commerce and services were no longer an option. Suddenly financial institutions, employment and recruiting, medical and professional services — companies and institutions who felt no need to prioritize mobile experiences found themselves facing mobile engagement as their only customer or client interaction options.
Businesses of all sizes and shapes can benefit from a solid website strategy focusing on mobile users. There are apparent enhancements, such as a POS system or mobile-friendly payment integration (think Apple Pay, Venmo, PayPal, Google Pay). Service-based companies or professional services can easily use their mobile-friendly site to easily communicate reviews and testimonials of your champion customers easily or provide transparent, friendly, and engaging content to drive leads to your site/forms/newsletters or other marketing initiatives. Simply making your search bar, navigation panels, or menus and placing basic information with uniformity on your site can make a world of difference for mobile users. It does not matter the size of your venture—nearly everyone is using a mobile phone—even minor updates and optimizations have the potential to provide a massive impact on companies and institutions large and small.
The desktop/mobile divide is something worth noting. The conversion difference between Desktop and Mobile shoppers is a massive 270%. More people convert on desktop than mobile—why is that? The answer is simply that only about 50% of the web is currently mobile-friendly. Users expect the same speed, efficiency, and simplicity – whether shopping at Mom and Pop’s Shop or buying from Amazon.
Mobile-friendly sites also need to be fast; lucky for us, so do desktop sites. Most users expect their sites to load in two seconds or less, or they will jump to a more optimized competitor. Speed will be critical when you’re a business in competition with big-box stores like Amazon or Walmart. Optimization and performance are crucial for speed—how are your site images formatted? Do you have slow-loading videos on every page? Do your product pages load quickly on mobile and desktop, and can customers shop on your site?
Coming to your site, users should not have to think about the functionality of the space they are in – if they are thinking about how slow, unorganized, or clunky the site is, you’ve probably already lost them. The speed differences here are between two and three seconds. When dealing with micro-optimizations, owners want at least one expert to advise them. While this practice can sound daunting, professional web developers constantly adapt their technologies and methods to meet this need.
Businesses can gain tremendous insights from how and where customers interact with their company. Do you know what devices customers are using to get to you? Are they on Desktop or Mobile? Do you know where to find these analytics and apply them to an effective mobile strategy?
Analytics and data integration is another critical benefit to bringing in experts, folks who are mobile, Google, Facebook, and web gurus that can not only provide the platform to connect with your customers, clients, or leads – but the analytics to back it up. A mobile application or mobile-optimized site can also give business owners access to behavior, retention, and geographical data. This new data source can open new avenues for consumer contact or even open up new markets owners may not have considered.
What happens when a site doesn’t have good mobile integration? According to Review42.com and Blue Corona – 61% of users who encounter a non-mobile-friendly site will NEVER return. Mobile device usage is, unsurprisingly, projected to grow by nearly 50% in 2022. Suppose we apply that to the figures for the United States. That means an additional 135 MILLION users in the United States alone, with Worldwide new users headed for over two billion (with a B).
Do you have a mobile-friendly version of your site? Why are mobile users visiting your location, what are they looking to do – and can they do it quickly and easily? Can customers easily contact you on their mobile devices – via call, text, email, or social? Have you never even considered these questions before? The web design services at Prophase can help. Let us help you get moving today and prepare for tomorrow with a new, mobile-economy optimized site supported by leading industry analytics and top-tier creative design. Learn more about our Web Design offerings here!
