3 Simple Reasons To Convert Your Existing Website For Mobile

It’s becoming common knowledge that websites that don’t display right on mobile devices are a pain. How many times have you been annoyed that a website you pulled up on your phone looked just like it was meant to display on a larger screen?

That tiny text that you had to pinch and zoom to read is a nuisance when you are on the viewing end, but for business owners with non-mobile websites the pain can be much greater. Every visitor who navigates away from your business website because it’s not mobile ready is potentially decreasing your bottom line. You may have heard numbers thrown around – 30%, 40% or even 50% of all search traffic now comes from mobile devices – but all you really need to know is that this trend towards mobile browsing is not going to reverse itself. For business to thrive you must adapt.

The good news is, you don’t need to shell out thousands of dollars to get a brand new website in order to join the mobile web era. In fact, most non-mobile websites can be made mobile friendly with some simple changes to code, and a little craftiness on the part of your web developer. This solution isn’t right for everyone, but if your website is less than 5 years old it is worth considering.

Here are 3 simple reasons to convert your existing website for mobile:

1. You LIKE your website design – Your website needs to represent your business well, and that means you need to like what it says about you.  If you really like the way your website looks on a computer, that’s probably because you have a nice design that fits your business identity and resonates with your personality.  Creating that is a lot easier said than done, and once you have a design you like you should keep it until it stops working for you.  Don’t waste your money paying designers to create something new.  Instead, consider getting your existing website converted to display correctly on mobile.

2. It can be a LOT cheaper than a whole new website – It can be done for $999 or less in some cases.  Your developer will need to be crafty about creating a mobile version of your navigation menu, changing the order that certain elements display, hiding other elements entirely, converting layouts with multiple columns to display in just a single column, but overall the process is much easier than designing a brand new website from scratch.  It can be completed in as little as 7-10 days, too.

3. You’ll get the same benefits as a brand new website – Google and other search engines have adjusted their algorithms to give preferential ranking to sites that are built for mobile.  And web users have adjusted their web content consumption habits to align with the mobile paradigm.  They don’t want to pinch and zoom and read long dense passages of text about your company, and you don’t want them to associate your company with out of date technology.  It doesn’t take a complete redesign to reap the rewards of the mobile era – just a little technology upgrade.

Before you pull the trigger on a whole new web design project, you should always consider your goals.  Is your website ugly?  Does it look like it was built in 1997?  Then the above alternative is not for you.  But if you feel good about your business when you look at your website on a desktop, then half the battle is won.  Don’t re-fight it!  Focus your attention on getting a crafty web developer to convert your website for mobile without touching the overall design of your site.