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3 Ridiculously Practical Reasons why Mobile Responsive Design Matters

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You don’t need a new website, do you? So maybe your site is a little out of date, but its got your phone number on it and its pretty easy to see what you offer your customers. Why should you spend money to get a new website?

Typically it comes down to one factor alone – how it looks on a mobile. While we won’t dispute that some industries have a low viewership of websites on mobile devices its entirely possible that number might be low for the exact reason that people can’t see anything on your website on a mobile so they don’t even bother in the first place.

What is mobile-responsive design? Essentially it means taking the desktop version of your website and adjusting the content and sizing of things so that on every other device it looks normal, easy to read and no pinching and zooming are required.

Here are some ridiculously practical reasons why mobile responsive design is critical:

1. Commutes are Longer – People in cars/trains/buses/trams don’t talk to their seat mate anymore – they check out their phone on that hour long trip to work in the city and this includes all generations of people, not just gen-y. Why bust out your laptop when you can use your mobile with one hand?

2. WiFi is Everywhere and Free Most Places – the Shopping Centre, the bus, the coffee shop, the airport – and of course this is for all devices but unless you are editing a document in Word on your laptop, why wouldn’t you just use your mobile?

3. Because You Want People to Call Your Business – On a well-developed site the link to your phone number is always accessible but even better, when you click on it something magical happens – the phone you are on will ask you if you want to call that number immediately. These people that call are leads, that will buy things from you

So of course our awesome designers and developers can help you build the mobile responsive website of your dreams but from the broader web community we would like to formally announce that people use their phones, a lot, and if your website sucks on mobile then it will impact your business.

Three Steps to Feeling Less Intimidated by Website Design

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We all need a little care and contemplation every once in a while to get the best out of ourselves and website design is no different. In a website build or revamp project it really is the most important part of the process and most people feel intimidated from the start. Never fear – these 3 easy steps will help you feel a whole lot more in control and confident in what you can achieve.

Step One – What You Want to Feature?

There are those normal things like About Us, Products and/Services Lists and Contact Forms that all sites generally have and they are important too. But when your customers (current and future) load your website what are the couple of things that you really want to impress upon them? What is your unique sales proposition, what makes you stand out? Is it your extensive product range or maybe your expert skill in your particular area. Whatever it is, it matters when it comes to the site design.

Step Two – What Do You Want People to Do?

If we use the storefront comparison, if customers have physically entered your store and are showing signs of interest, what would you want them to do? This is easy to track when you are looking at someone face to face, and its easy to track online too with Google Analytics by figuring out how long people are spending on your website and what pages they are looking at, but I digress.

What do you want them to do? Buy straight away, call you to discuss how you can help, send an email to request an appointment or reservation? What you can encourage your customers to do on your website is virtually unlimited, but keep it simple and know what you want to them to do so that the site design encourages that.

Step Three – Find Existing Websites That Do These Things Well

Ultimately you can’t go wrong by putting yourself in your customer’s shoes, so find the sites they like, and the ones you do too and then share all of this information with your designer. And be specific about those things because no site is going to do everything exactly like you would so don’t be afraid to mention likes and dislikes about those examples.

The Internet is framed around being able to gain information and engage in transactions quickly, therefore following the above three steps with this principle in mind means you will be in the driver’s seat of your website build. Empowered and dare we say it, feeling a little excited too!

Interested in sharing your design dreams with us? Give us a call or click here for more information.