Mobile Web Sites Present Opportunity

New research from Demandforce indicates that by the end of 2013, more people will use a mobile device to access the Internet than will use their PCs. Oddly enough, despite mobile’s rocket like trajectory, a very surprising 90% of websites are not optimized for mobile.

In order to understand what features are important for a mobile site, DemandForce has some great insight as part of their research. Most importantly, 78% desire a quick way to get to the information they are looking for with convenient navigation that requires the lowest number of clicks possible. This is closely followed by 76% who want the web site to fit their smartphone screen better and 74% who want a clean and efficient look and feel. Following just behind that in terms of importance to users, 73% want the ability to save information for future reference. Further down the list they found that 69% want to limit fat finger syndrome by being offered bigger buttons to use.

The problems of not having a mobile-optimized site are quite obvious. Your customers will go elsewhere, feeling frustrated, or feel that your company is not interested in their business. These are all things that can be easily rectified by offering your customers a site optimized for mobile devices. In fact, recent research from Google that states that when mobile users visit a non-optimized website from a mobile device,  whether it’s a preferred brand or not, 50% will abandon it. So, by not adopting a mobile web presence, you’re not just turning away new customers, you’re also turning away part of your existing customer base. To make matters worse, 67% are likely to go on to buy from a site that is optimized for mobile devices.

Mobile optimized web sites currently present a terrific opportunity to increase market share over you competitors that are not taking advantage of the opportunity.