Web

3.8 Billion Reasons Why Your Website Needs a Mobile-First Redesign

According to Statista, the number of smartphone users worldwide will rise to an all-time high of 3.8 billion people this year. Considering that there are roughly 7.8 billion people alive today, this 3.8 billion number is pretty significant.

Nearly one-half of all humans ON EARTH are accessing and interacting with content online using some sort of mobile device.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Half of the world’s population is using a smartphone to solve their problems and move forward in life, through any number of opportunities including:

• Buying groceries
• Paying bills
• Finding a date
• Renting an apartment
• Checking credit scores
• Managing investments
• Applying for a loan
• Earning a degree
• Learning a new skill
• Landing a job
• Finding a doctor
• Seeing a doctor
• Hiring a contractor
• Researching/Finding/Buying all.the.things

Whether it’s booking your next vacation or your next doctor’s appointment, there isn’t much we can’t do online today—and the vast majority of these actions are performed on a smartphone. Actually, we may even go so far as to say that the only reason any action cannot be performed on a smartphone is due to a website’s lack of mobile-friendly design.

Websites That Don’t Work on Smartphones Will Sink Your Sales

Humanity is utterly dependent on our smartphones to do life.

While we are not here to discuss the ethics of these realities, the point we DO want to drive home is this: if your customers cannot interact with your company on their smartphones, you are losing business.

This reality should have a dramatic impact on how you view your website. Because if your website was not designed with mobile device users in mind, it is urgent you make updates to ensure that you’re not losing business.

In fact, we’re willing to bet that you are reading this blog post on a mobile device. Even if you’re not, stop reading for a sec and pull up your company’s website on your smartphone and perform a quick audit. How does it look? Click around and see for yourself if there is anything you can do on the desktop version that you can’t do on the mobile version. For instance:

• Did the site load quickly?
• Can forms be completed correctly? 
• Do all purchasing links function properly?
• Are there any broken links? 
• Do the images look right on the smaller screen?  
• Can you clearly see (and complete) the call to action?  

These are the big things to look for but there is much more that goes into a mobile-first web design. In fact, designing for mobile devices first should be the starting point for all web design in a world where half of the population uses a smartphone. Websites that are not designed for mobile devices will come across clunky, hard to read—or worse—slow to load, resulting in missed leads, abandoned carts, and lost sales.

Mobile-First Web Design Puts Customers First

In ourcontent marketing discussions, we talk a lot about making the customer the hero as opposed to making the brand the hero. This idea should extend into site design as well because you want to help the hero (your customer) solve their problems and win the day. If your website doesn’t play nicely on mobile devices, it may very well be working against the hero which will drive business away from your site.

The technical term we use to describe this is user experience, or UX, which encapsulates all aspects of your customer’s experience with your brand from services and products to marketing and customer service. The point is that your customer’s journey—from both a buying and branding perspective—should be seamless. We’ve written about the importance of UX before, but in terms of designing websites for smartphones, user experience should be the primary consideration for all design decisions.

Because you know the stats and website users aren’t patient—you have literally seconds to capture their attention.

Losing business to bad mobile design is tragic because it’s 100 percent preventable.

The problem is that, depending on how long it’s been since your last web redesign, redesigning your website to prioritize mobile-first design may take significant effort.

What Makes Mobile-First Design Different

Before the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, we relied solely on desktops and laptops to access the internet. For decades, the way we built websites was based on this specific type of user interface and experience. As mobile devices grew in functionality and sophistication, consumer demand skyrocketed for internet access in our pockets. The problem is, websites built for large screens don’t always display correctly on small screens. A new approach to design was required to ensure a better customer experience.
Mobile-first websites are designed for the smallest screens first and are built out from there. As you can imagine, it is quite challenging to incorporate everything customers expect from a website on such a small screen. Mobile-first design solves those problems first by identifying the essentials and building a site for the mobile device before building for a desktop screen. The other approach to this starts with all the complexities of a desktop version and then strips it down for small screens in a process called graceful degradation, which comes with its own list of complications. The most efficient way is to start small and build out the website from there.

Because the space you have to work with on a smartphone is much smaller than a desktop display, you have to be choosy with what you say and show on your mobile-friendly website. There isn’t room for tchotchke or unnecessary bells and whistles that distract users from the main content. This is actually a huge benefit because it forces the brand to be crystal clear with its message.

Are you ready for a mobile-first website that’s easier to use, faster, and more profitable?

After reviewing your business’s website on your smartphone, did you encounter any of the errors listed above? If so, send us a message and we would love to help you by providing a thorough audit of your website and recommending a strategy that prioritizes mobile-first design.

When you choose Cross & Crown to redesign your website, we will begin a discovery process to understand your challenges, define your purpose, and establish goals tied to your vision. From there we continue collaborating with you to handcraft a custom digital solution that is mobile-first, user-centric, visually stunning, and strategically driven to get results.

We look forward to working with you on your next website project! Let us know how we can help!