Do You Need Mobile Design?
February 19, 2015
Do You Really Need Mobile Web Design? - A question that gets asked all too often by business owners is starting to be answered more and more consistently with a deafening, "yes." Web design in general used to occupy this question. In the past, it wasn't totally non-sensical to question whether a website itself was really necessary to a given business. Today, lacking a website is tantamount to not being prepared for business, just as showing up for a conference without current business cards could show a similar unpreparedness in the past. Now, the focus has turned to mobile or responsive web design. With a massive shift of web traffic going from desktop to mobile platforms over the past couple years, the time to consider an investment in mobile web design is upon business owners and brand managers. So, it appears that having a responsive mobile web design really is a necessity for aspiring brands, moving forward.
There are two specifically convincing reasons to consider adding a responsive mobile website to your business assets in 2015. The first and most important reason is because your customers are demanding it. The second and nearly equally-important reason is because Google is demanding it. If those two reasons alone are not compelling enough, combined they add up to the conclusion that not going mobile will eventually become an expensive choice.
If you need evidence that users are demanding mobile web design, take a look at any waiting area. Whether it be the line at the DMV, the doctor's office or the bus stop, people are spending their free time engaged with content on their mobile phones. While mobile versus desktop traffic has begun to reach a near parity across a variety of market segments, it's not quite as enjoyable an experience for most visitors of mobile sites, compared to an average desktop viewing experience.
A higher bounce rate on mobile pages versus their desktop counterparts indicate this disparity of experiences being had on desktop versus on mobile. Considering the added complications of formatting useful content to a smaller screen size, it's understandable why the bounce rate for traffic would be higher on mobile. Alas, there is still much that can be done by site and business owners before the competition dominates the mobile space in a given niche.
Google as well as the cadre of smaller search engines are looking for the presence of mobile functionality and rewarding sites with advantageous ranking if mobile access is encouraged. The fact alone that Google has already sent out mass email notifications to Google Webmaster users targeting specifically those who have not been very proactive with their mobile website planning tells you that mobile will play a big part of web marketing in 2015 and beyond.
The explicit message from the biggest search engine in the world was that failure to address mobile access needs will result in a definite penalty in the way of search ranking results. This recent move by the search giant couldn't have been executed in a more direct way to make clear their stance on the importance of mobile web design in the future of the web.
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