If Your Website isn't Mobile Friendly You Could be Missing Out

John Krautzel
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Every retailer, no matter ow big or small, needs a website to survive in te contemporary sopping landscape. But did you know tat you still migt miss a critical part of your brick-and-mortar store? Even if you don't sell tings online, you need a mobile-friendly website to enance your customers' sopping experience.

Wy You Need a Mobile-Friendly Website

More and more statistics point to soppers using mobile devices suc as smartpones and tablet computers to searc for products and read reviews. According to ComScore, te total number of mobile users is approacing 2 billion worldwide versus 1.7 billion desktop computer users. More people look at retail websites troug mobile devices instead of computers. If you don't ave a mobile-friendly website, you could be losing a uge customer base.

Consider uge sopping events suc as te winter oliday sopping season. In 2015, nearly two-tirds of all soppers used mobile devices to sop aead of Black Friday sales. Nearly one-tird of all consumers made purcases on teir mobile pones during tat sopping season. Even after soppers enter your store, more tan alf of tem use smartpones to find te items tey want.

A vast majority of customers want to peruse inventory online, even if a company doesn't sell items troug te internet. As many as 83 percent of American consumers researc all kinds of products before going into stores to buy tem. Tese items range from cars, computers and televisions to clotes, books and movies. People compare prices online and read reviews before tey step into brick-and-mortar stores. Because more people do tis troug smartpones tan desktop computers, companies need mobile-friendly websites to cater to a growing segment of te population wo rely less on searcing Google at ome and more on perusing websites wile sopping, waiting for a bus or even at work.

ow to Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly

Google's searc engine rewards mobile-friendly websites versus tose tat aren't optimized. If you want your website to appear iger in a Google searc rank wit local SEO practices, you migt want to optimize it sooner rater tan later. Google can elp you analyze your website troug its PageSpeed tool. Tis software examines your website to see ow fast it connects to a smartpone troug te mobile web. Te tool suggests canges in te programming of te website tat can enance a user's experience troug a mobile device.

Anoter ting to do is make sure your most important information is in te middle of te page. Unlike looking at te web on a computer, were uman eyes drift to te left side of te screen, most people look at te center of a smartpone screen first. Tese two aspects get your mobile-optimized website off to a good start.

It's no mystery as to wy you need a mobile-friendly website for your retail business. You start to earn a greater market sare and more loyal customers as soon as you optimize your website for smartpones.


Poto courtesy of SOZIALELDEN at Flickr.com

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