Aside from being a hub of information, your website should guide customers through the purchase journey. But you can't just have any website. You need a mobile-friendly website.

Why?

Essentially, a mobile-friendly website makes your business more accessible to potential customers. In this post, you'll learn five reasons your website designer should ensure mobile optimization. But first:

What Is a Mobile-Friendly Website?

Mobile-friendly websites are sites your visitors can access easily from their mobile devices. So, they have simple designs, layouts, and large fonts that make them easy to navigate, even on a small screen.

At a time when more people are using mobile devices to access the Internet, you need to create mobile-friendly sites to maintain an online presence. Just look at the statistics. At least nine in 10 internet users access the web via a mobile phone. According to the State of Mobile 2023 study, people spend upwards of five hours each day on their mobile phones.

In other words, if you're not optimizing your website for mobile, you're losing out on many potential customers who prefer to use the device when navigating the Internet.

Benefits of a Mobile-Friendly Website

Still don't believe me? Here are other benefits of mobile-friendly websites that are likely to convince you:

Improves Mobile Conversion Rates

In 2021, nearly one-third of US Internet users employed a mobile phone to make a purchase every week. By 2024, mobile commerce volume is expected to be valued at $620.97 billion. That means half of all eCommerce purchases, or 42.9%, are expected to be made via a mobile device. In other words, if your site is mobile-friendly, you can capture that huge market of potential customers.

But buying isn't the only thing users do with their mobile phones. A staggering 52% of PPC clicks leading to landing pages come from mobile. Meanwhile, more than half, or 66%, read their emails using the same type of device.

In other words, people will likely click on your PPC ad or your email link using their mobile device. If you direct them to a mobile-friendly site where they can also take your desired action, you increase your chances of conversions.

So, make sure to create mobile-friendly forms, whether contact or checkout forms. Use a responsive design template. Also, make your call-to-action stand out by using colors contrasting with your website background. Your CTA should also be large enough and have enough white space around it so it's easy to tap on a small screen.

Ensures Higher Ranking in Search Engine Results

In 2015, Google started using mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal in mobile searches. In May 2016, Google rolled out an update that saw an even bigger boost to mobile-friendly pages in mobile search results. The update affected the mobile search results in all languages and applied to different types of queries.

Simply put, Google is now even more likely to rank your website higher in mobile search results if it's mobile-friendly.

But that doesn't just hold true for mobile searches. Google has said that it predominantly uses the mobile version of a site's content for general indexing and ranking. It calls this mobile-first indexing. So, while websites aren't required to have mobile versions of their pages to be included in general Google search results, Google says it is "very strongly recommended."

Why do you want a higher search ranking, both on mobile and the desktop version?

Higher search rankings drive site traffic, and increased traffic means more sales opportunities for your business.

To create a mobile-friendly site, Google recommends using a responsive design with the same HTML code on the same URL regardless of the user's device. Also, use high-quality images supported by Google Search like BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, and SVG. Here are other mobile-first indexing best practices to follow.

Provides New Advertising Opportunities

Mobile advertising is a powerful tool for businesses to reach their target audience. You can leverage Google mobile ads such as:

• Text ads
• Image ads
• Mobile app promotion ads
• Call-only ad

Social media ads work on mobile, too. Hubspot's consumer trend report shows that 22 percent of Gen Z and 24 percent of millennials purchase products on social media. A whopping 65 percent of all clicks who intend to purchase go to paid ads for this.

But for you to effectively leverage these mobile ads, you need to optimize your website for mobile as well. This is where users will be directed to after they click on your ad, after all. If they click on your mobile ads and get to your site that doesn't render well on a small screen, they'll leave without taking your desired action. Long story short, you can't possibly run an effective mobile advertising campaign if your site isn't mobile-friendly in the first place.

Of course, it follows that your mobile ads should be mobile-friendly as well. Avoid using too much text in your ads, as mobile screens are limited in size. Use compelling imagery, even video. With excellent visuals, you won't just catch people's attention and increase their chances of clicking through to your site. You also gain more likes on Instagram, comments on Facebook, or any other type of engagement on your chosen mobile ad platform.

Remember to also use clear calls to action in your mobile ads.

Improves User Experience

Mobile-friendliness can boost the user experience. Over 70 percent of publishers said they got better feedback on their user experience when they made their content mobile-friendly. User experience is key. Almost 90 percent of users are less likely to return to websites with a bad UX. On the other hand, 80 percent of Internet users are willing to pay extra for a good user experience.

All this is not to say that using a responsive website template across devices is enough to enhance the user experience. You still need to pay attention to other website elements to boost the mobile user experience.

So, you'll need to compress your images so they're not bulky. An ideal size dimension is 800 x 500 pixels. However, depending on page placement, dimensions could be bigger or smaller.

You also want to ensure the content on your site is scannable and concise.

Use short bullet points, paragraphs, and subheadings to break down your points so they're easy to read on a small screen.

Additionally, pay attention to your website's uptime and loading speed.

Reduces Loading Time

Users are becoming increasingly impatient with slow loading times, especially as fast Internet becomes widely available.

Over 40 percent of users won't wait longer than two seconds for a website to load. A whopping 70 percent of consumers also say page speed influences their willingness to purchase from an online retailer. These numbers aren't surprising. Slow loading time wastes customers' valuable time and can leave less time for more important tasks. According to time management stats, the consequences of poor time management include loss of productivity and revenue.

Besides, as a critical component of user experience, page speed is a search engine ranking factor.
Herein lies another one of the other important benefits of mobile-friendly websites: they can help reduce loading time.

How?

Well, mobile screens are smaller than desktop screens. So, it follows that mobile-friendly sites typically have smaller website elements, including images. In fact, the median size of images on a desktop is 980.3 kb. The median size of images on mobile is 891.7 kb. We already know that images add a lot of weight to websites and consume a lot of bandwidth, affecting speed.

Of course, you shouldn't just bank on this fact. You still have to take steps to ensure your mobile-friendly sites meet the loading time expectations of consumers.

So, don't upload images larger than 1 MB. Also, enable caching. Caching allows the storage of copies of frequently accessed web pages on the user's browser. This way, the pages load more quickly the next time the mobile user visits.

Employing a content delivery network (CDN) may also reduce load time. It's an interconnected system of servers placed in strategic locations worldwide. So, when a browser loads a webpage using CDN, most of the data transferred will come from a nearby server. Because of the proximity, the CDN can deliver the webpage content faster.

Conclusion

Mobile-friendly websites are no longer just something you may or may not have as a business. They're a necessity. With more Internet users opting to use mobile devices, the benefits of mobile-friendly websites cannot be denied.

Mobile-friendly websites help improve mobile conversions and ensure higher search engine rankings. They give you new advertising opportunities as well. With mobile-friendly websites, you can improve the user experience. That includes reducing loading time as well.

So, optimize your mobile site if you haven't done so already. You won't just reap these benefits of mobile-friendly websites. Ultimately, you'll make your customers happy and see your business grow.