Just when it seemed like the Internet was turning us all into people who sat around in our pajamas to go shopping, web-enabled mobile devices have us bumping into lamp posts as we search for lunch options on our smartphones. A growing number of people are using their phones to search for local businesses when they need something while they are out and about. In fact, if the current trends continue, more people will be searching the web from their phones than from their desktop computers by the end of 2014. And yet, only a tiny handful of the 60% of small businesses that have a traditional website have even considered investing in mobile website design.
If you own a local restaurant, car repair shop, hardware store, hair salon, spa, bakery, boutique, florist shop (you get the idea), what is your mobile web page design strategy? If you don’t have a good answer to that question, consider this all-too-frequent scenario that America’s 82.2 million smartphone owners complain about on a daily basis:
You’re visiting another town with your family, and you’ve got two hungry kids whining in the back seat. You check your smart phone for local restaurant listings. You find one that sounds tasty. You go to their website, but it’s a mess. It’s impossible to navigate on your little smart phone screen. You can’t access the menu because it’s in PDF format. You’d call to ask if they’re taking reservations, but you can’t find their phone number because the website is too hard to navigate, or there’s an annoying animation you can’t even see properly. If you’ve stayed with it this long, you’re in the minority. Most smartphone users searching for a local business leave for greener (as in mobile website design optimized) pastures within seconds, looking for a local business mobile website they can actually use. And those small businesses with a good mobile web page design saw their business increase, as a direct result of smartphone searches, by a whopping 84 percent!
As this scene plays out around the country millions of times every day, it’s shocking that only 5 percent of local restaurants have a mobile website design plan, while overall, 61 percent of small business owners have no mobile web page design plans whatsoever. Really? This is like shutting their doors in the face of customers on the street, ready to buy what they have to sell.
If you haven’t considered what mobile website design means for your small business, you need to contact us right now. Getting your small business outfitted with a mobile website does not have to be complicated and expensive – but you need experts in your corner who know what they’re doing. And you need a mobile website design company that can steer you in the right direction to increase your bottom line with mobile customers.
And the bottom line for your bottom line is that Usability is King – Fancy flash animations (that don’t even work on smartphones) and cool apps mean absolutely nothing to a guy parked on the side of the road looking for the nearest florist shop so he can get some flowers for his date. He’s busy. He’s on a mission. He wants to know where the flowers are, how much they cost and how to get to the shop. It’s that simple. Mobile web page design isn’t about flashy graphics and animation. It’s about getting the job done; it’s about making yourself available to your customers so that they choose your shop over the other guy’s shop. That doesn’t mean your mobile web page design needs to be boring. We can make great-looking and great-functioning mobile websites. On the mobile web, first impressions are everything.
With so few small businesses taking advantage of the enormous possibilities of mobile web page design, now is the time to call Affordable Web Design and be the first (or one of the first) businesses on your block to lead the charge and grab the customers. The customers are out there looking for you on their smart phones. Can they find you? And if they find you, what do they see?