Do Your Business a Favor: Optimize Your Website for Mobile

We’re always looking for ways to increase our knowledge base here at O3. Whether it’s reading a new book, attending a conference, or just spit balling in the office over lunch, we’re constantly craving new info and exploring new ideas, concepts, and trends in the interactive space.

These days, it seems like you can’t escape the mounting data on mobile web access and how it’s changing the landscape for communicating with your consumers, whether you’re in the B2B or B2C realm. Here’s one of the staggering facts we’ve come across:

Mobile web access is expected to surpass desktop access by 2014

According to SOURCE, in just a couple short years the way the majority of people access the Internet will have shifted away from a stationary desktop paradigm. Think for a minute about what that means for your business. How does your site look in a mobile browser? Is all of the relevant information still prominent? Are all of the key areas for your business goals (what we call conversion points) easily accessed? How quickly does the site load? Does it load at all?

Consider another statistic:

Half of all local searches are performed on mobile devices

Maybe you run a business that simply cannot “convert” online. Restaurants are a great example. Having people visit your website or sign up for a reservation using OpenTable is well and good, but you don’t actually win until they step in the door. Great, consider what that statistic means for your business. At least 50% of the people that want to buy from you are actually out and about when they go looking for your information! If they can’t get to your hours of operation, your menu, your phone number, your product list, your address, your specials... guess what, they can probably get to a competitor’s. With more and more companies and industries realizing the power of mobile, it’s only a matter of time before those that haven’t adapted get left behind.

Still not convinced this whole mobile thing is for you? Consider this final, completely awesome fact:

In 2010, eBay sold 12,000 automobiles through its mobile platforms

Think about that for a second. People bought cars from eBay on their cell phones. Cars. Twelve thousand of them. Never mind the fact that eBay did over 2 billion (that's with a B) in total sales through their mobile channel alone in the course of that same year. If people are sitting in the park making five-figure purchases on their mobile device... are you really sure you want to roll the dice betting that mobile just doesn’t make sense for your business?

We geek out on everything interactive around here, and mobile is no exception. If you want to talk a bit about how our responsive-design methodology ensures that your site scales well no matter what kind of screen is looking at it, or maybe just want to pick our brain about some of the specific sales tools we’ve built for tablet devices, we’d love to shoot the breeze. Just, ya know, don’t be offended if we have to put you on hold to lock down the last bid on the company Zamboni we’ve been keeping an eye on for the last week.