Ever since Google announced that they’d be giving priority on mobile searches to mobile websites this year businesses across America have been on a push to mobilize their websites. That’s great. And it’s one of our many selling points here at RLC Design. Sadly, just because you made a mobile website doesn’t mean that getting found is going to work overnight. More importantly, if your mobile website isn’t built properly it can be an even bigger turn off to the mobile users you’re trying to reach.
Not Just Mobile Ready, Mobile Friendly!
This site is mobile ready, but it sure isn’t friendly. The formatting on my iPhone leaves the logo overlapping text, there is no navigation menu, and to find the phone number you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the site. Fail.
With the push to create a mobile website, many designers and businesses forgot something. They started churning out mobile ready website designs, but they didn’t make them friendly. Not friendly at all!
If you do a search on a mobile device, Google now labels it “Mobile-Friendly.” Friendly……
What am I talking about you ask? Well today we have a great example of how a design team meets the client’s needs on one level, while completely failing on another level.
We’ve been contacting RV Resorts throughout the Southwest over the past few weeks. Snow Bird season is upon us, and that means hundreds of thousands of RV’ers are heading south for the winter. The RV Resorts throughout the southern states depend on their over winter revenue to make it through the slow season (summer is miserable in Yuma), so reaching every potential guest is not just important, it’s imperative.
As a full time RV’er for 9 years now, I know a little something about how the RV Parks and Resorts work. That’s part of why we enjoy working with these businesses, we really understand them and what their core goals are.
One group of Resorts that we contacted hadn’t responded to us, but recently we saw that two of their eight websites changed. They were now mobile….sort of. Their designers made the sites mobile, but they left out the friendly part. So on one level, they met their customer’s needs. The site is mobile. On another level, they’ve hurt their client because the site is not friendly for the users who will look at it on a mobile device. Those users are the potential guests for these parks, and the whole point of the website is to reach them!
There is a point to your mobile website
The whole reason people are creating mobile websites is to reach the new mobile client base. This isn’t a fad or a trend that will go away. Customers are searching for you on mobile devices. That’s why we create mobile websites.
Just making the site fit on a mobile device screen doesn’t mean you’re done. Like any other website you need some things:
- Content! I want to know about you!
- Easy navigation. Are you really going to make me work to find out if I should give you my business?
- Don’t make me think! Everything should be obvious on the site.
- How can I contact / buy from you?
There’s more to the list of course. And when we sit down with clients we review all of their goals and objectives. In our example today it’s pretty clear no goals or objectives were ever discussed. Just make it mobile. What a waste of time and effort.
Mobile website design isn’t rocket science. Neither is regular website design. But it does take some effort, and conversations with clients. If your designer doesn’t take the time to get to know your business? You’re most likely just slapping up another “digital business card,” in a sea of other digital business cards.
Let RLC Design help you sort through what you really need to do with your web presence. We build mobile friendly, SEO ready, effective websites that your customers will appreciate! Check out the video below as we review why the website we’re talking about fails across the board.