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Why your e-commerce website must be mobile-friendly in 2018

Google has predicted that, by 2020, each of us will own 26 connected smart devices. Collectively, that’s 6 billion higher than the figure in 2006 and sheds light on why, if you want to reach out to potential e-commerce customers in 2018, you can’t afford to overlook optimising your site for use on mobile.

Today, mobile devices are used more often than desktops for conducting online searches – meaning that sites should even be optimised for mobile first. Here are more reasons why it needs to happen…

Potential customers have little tolerance for mobile-unfriendly sites

The screens of mobile devices are, obviously, much smaller than those of desktop computers – and this has various implications for how people navigate sites on these pocket-friendly gadgets.

If your site is designed without sufficient account of these implications, you could too easily fritter away valuable opportunities for new custom. You might not have realised that encountering a poor mobile experience with an e-commerce site makes people 62% less likely to buy from it.

Site navigation must be streamlined

An e-commerce site designed only to scale up to large screens could necessitate constant and arduous tapping and scrolling for people who attempt to use it on mobile.

Naturally, that would all add up to frustration – and, as a result, your company could take a surprisingly big hit to its revenues. As a rule of thumb, no part of your site should ever be more than three clicks away, as web users prize ease and simplicity when trying to navigate sites.

You have a need for speed

Another risk of a website design tailored specifically to desktop audiences is that, inadvertently, you might have added many graphics, videos and other bells and whistles that drag down load times.

More to the point, those elements could slow load times on mobile devices, as many of those still in common use might be reliant on relatively primitive processors and RAM amounts. This would be concerning, as websites taking at least three seconds to load suffer from a 53% drop-off rate.

Mobile devices can hugely vary in screen size

Both smartphones and tablets are often classed as “mobile”, creating confusion for webmasters who might have deemed tablets largely akin to laptops. However, even smartphones can come in many different display sizes, potentially causing havoc for people seeking to craft user-friendly web design.

Well, this would be assuming that the designer doesn’t craft what is known as “responsive” web design. For your e-commerce site, we can provide such a design that adapts itself to various displays.

You must strip extraneous flab from the shopping process

When someone uses an e-commerce site on a small screen, little inconveniences – like requiring people to register before they can buy anything or making checkout forms unnecessarily long – can severely frustrate that person. Remember, mobile users don’t have patience in spades!

Still, we can take close account of all of this when designing a website for you. We can explain further whether you call us on 01325 582112 or email info@webaheadinternetltd.co.uk.

Why your e-commerce website must be mobile-friendly in 2018
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