The issue is not a difficult one to address. There are two approaches to offering your users a good Mobile experience: 1. Responsive Design or 2. A Stand-alone Mobile Site. (You could argue that creating a SmartPhone “App” would be a 3rd option, but we’ll just stick to Web solutions in this article).
At my agency, we became very interested in the principle of Responsive Web Design as an intelligent answer to the mobile problem around 2009. Responsive Design is the application of new coding techniques that enable a website to ‘respond’ to the size of the screen it is being viewed on. This means one website and one content management system, but a layout that can change itself to suit many desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile screen sizes (even Games Consoles and TVs).
The alternative to Responsive Design is to create a cut-down or simplified version of your website that’s designed specifically for viewing and/or using on a mobile device. When a user reaches your site from a mobile device, the site will “switch” to this version (but offer them the option to see the full site if they wish to).
So how do you choose the right option for your business? It comes down to the user and what they’re likely to be looking for when finding your site on their mobile. In the case of a restaurant, for example, it’s reasonable to assume that if someone has called up your site on their mobile, they’re most likely to be looking for one of four things: contact details, directions, menus and possibly a booking form – so perhaps that’s all the mobile site needs to display.
If, however, your mobile users appear to be consuming large quantities of news, articles, or blog content – then it may be worth going down the Responsive Route – so that they can view all the content your site has to offer in a mobile-friendly way, without you having to publish it twice to two different sites.
Ask your web designer to help you analyse your website’s visitor statistics (Google Analytics is the usual choice) – and look at how mobile users are using your current site (or trying to). Which areas of the site are they looking at? What keywords did they use to get there? In some cases you’ll learn that you only need to mobile optimise certain parts of the site in order to solve the problem. You might, for example, find that the large majority of users who are viewing the site on a mobile, have come from Twitter, or Facebook, and are trying to view news or event. The quick solution in this scenario would be to provide Responsive templates for the news and events sections of the site.
Optimising your site for mobile usage, as described, should not be expensive as it’s a fairly simple job for small businesses, and well worth doing. A website is often described as the shop window of a company, and rightly so in my opinion, it’s the place people go to find out about you. If you present your potential customers with an experience they find difficult and frustrating what is that telling them about you and your attitude and understanding of the needs of customers?
If you'd like to understand more about your Mobile Optimisation options, drop me a line directly: rick@looktouchfeel.co.uk or give us a call on 01327 828 443.
Originally published in Start Your Business Magazine, Issue 75.
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