To most online sellers and advertisers, customizing their websites to suit smartphones seems like a pointless investment. Compared to a desktop, laptop or even a tablet, a smartphone screen is tiny. No matter how well made, a webpage can only look so good on a small phone screen, especially when it is viewed in sunlight more often than not.
Also in general people spend much less time browsing a website on their smartphone than they do on their computers. All factors combined, putting together a smartphone compatible website seems like a waste of money and manpower….
… But it’s not. Looking good to appeal to your audience has been and always will be a big part of selling and advertising online, but this century is more about mobility and accessibility. The compromised aesthetics of a mobile webpage are more than made up for by the sheer amount of information access that mobile friendly websites provide. When people browse a webpage on their phones, they may stay for a shorter period of time, but often mean business (they may need your contact number or email address to get in touch with you.)
Smartphones have become part of the business world, to not connect to them (and cash in on them) is an opportunity lost. Statistics show that the average smartphone user spends about double the time browsing the web on their phone than they do making phone calls per day. Besides this, people who spend time browsing on their phone do not browse less on their computers, in fact, figures show that people who get used to browsing on the go, increase the time they spend on the internet.
With smartphones now out selling personal computers, adapting your webpage to be smartphone friendly will directly affect your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) rating. As the rush to adapt to smartphones and the resulting SEO boost are relatively new and have made big news, there are plenty of guidelines available to help adapt your SEO strategy to account for the shift from desktop to portable devices.
All in all having a smartphone friendly website is an excellent idea, but structure it according to its use, make it look good but spend less time on making it pretty and more on make it user and ‘tiny screen’ friendly. Also make it easy to load, people using their web browsers on the go are usually stretched for time, a slow loading web page is a pain in general, but it can be pure torture when using it through your handheld.
The world is moving on to smart phones. The IAB Consumer M-Commerce Study showed that more than 52 per cent of people in the UK have bought a smartphone recently. With such a huge audience that’s rapidly increasing each day, investing in being able to communicate to it can not go wrong. Mobile commerce is growing, and having a mobile friendly website allows you to tap into its potential.
This is very interesting! Well, it is really impractical to use your smartphone for online businesses and other similar activities involving the use of internet because it will be counter-productive since you will be spending more time browsing with such a slow speed compared to laptop. Even though smartphone has many advantages, still it can’t replace our laptop.