Staying on Top of the Mobile Takeover
Is your business prepared to brand itself on tablet computers and other mobile devices? Data released by market research firm eMarketer earlier this year reveals consumers made $25 billion in purchases last year through their smartphones and tablets, an increase of 81 percent over the previous year.
Market research firm IDC also expects tablet computers will outsell laptops in 2013 according to a recent Los Angeles Times Business article. So what can small businesses do to continue to adapt to the mobile market? A great start is making sure you have a Responsive Website Design (RWD).
RWD means having a website that can adjust and fit a wide variety of devices, whether it be on a desktop computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone. Why should businesses have RWD? Results of a study done by Google in 2012 revealed these useful findings:
- 75 percent of people prefer a mobile-friendly site.
- 61 percent will turn to another site if they don’t find what they are looking for quickly.
- 67 percent of mobile users say that when they visit a mobile-friendly site, they’re more likely to buy a site’s product or service.
- 48 percent said that if a site didn’t work well on their smartphones, it made them feel like the company didn’t care about their business.
There are plenty of resources available to any business needing to implement or improve its responsive web design. Mashable gives seven responsive design tips, including where to start, how to go about making a strategy and how to work with images in the design.
An infographic from visual.ly also gives elements for small business RWD such as layouts, images, fonts and navigation.
These sites and many others offer great tips for getting a business’s feet off the ground in creating a RWD. More and more consumers are switching to mobile devices for a majority of their needs. Is your business ready to welcome those consumers with mobile-friendly open arms?
Published on: May 31, 2013