The number of people using their mobiles to surf the web is on the increase, making it now more important than ever to have a mobile friendly website. Important changes in search algorithms also make it beneficial to go mobile. If you’re still on the fence about investing in a mobile friendly design, check out our reasons below on why your website has to be mobile friendly.

Lose customers and profits,

It’s not enough to have a website that works on mobiles; it’s got to be optimised to offer a great user experience. Businesses that fail to optimise their websites for mobile devices, may decide to shop or get the information they need elsewhere. The more customers you lose to competitors offering mobile friendly websites, the lower your profits will sink.,

Meet customers’ expectations

Today the majority of customers expect businesses to have mobile friendly websites so when they come across one that doesn’t it can be a big disappointment. Customers are likely to see businesses with non-mobile friendly websites as being unprofessional and out dated. When you’re trying to win customers trust and loyalty, this is not what you want them to think of you. Upgrade to a mobile friendly website and make sure you are meeting customers’ expectations.

Boost SEO

Choose a responsive web design (capable of adapting to individual devices) and you stand a great chance of boosting your website’s SEO. By offering customers a website that can optimise itself to meet their viewing needs, you will effectively deliver an exceptional user experience, which is bound to count towards your SEO. Not only that but you won’t have to worry about duplicate content issues, as with responsive web design, you have one single site that works for all devices.

In case you hadn’t heard, Google has also called responsive web design ‘best practice’ so if you want to impress the search engine and stand a good chance of boosting your rankings, a mobile friendly responsive website is the way to do it.

Google’s mobile search algorithm

Speaking of boosting SEO, if you have a mobile friendly website, you should expect to see elevated mobile search rankings from April. Recently Google announced that it plans to launch a new mobile search algorithm on 21st April this year. The search algorithm is designed to recognise and reward mobile friendly websites by giving them mobile search ranking benefits.

Whilst it won’t penalise sites that aren’t mobile friendly, it is definitely worth investing in a mobile friendly or responsive web design in order to boost your rankings and in turn, traffic to your website.

Future proof your website

There’s no denying the fact that we live in an increasingly mobile world, therefore it makes sense to build a website that is compatible with mobile devices. With more and more people using their smartphones to shop online, those that fail to cater for their needs with a mobile website, risk losing a huge proportion of their audience. The best way to future proof your website is to invest in a mobile friendly, responsive web design that is optimised for both current and future devices.

Despite knowing that mobile is the way forward, many companies are still resisting building a mobile or responsive website and by doing so are losing their competitive edge. If you want to bring your business into 2015 and ensure your website delivers a flawless user experience across all devices, then building a mobile friendly responsive website is the solution. The pros of building a mobile friendly site far outweigh the cons and whilst in the past it was considered a luxury, today it is becoming more and more of a necessity for all businesses.