Since the appearance of smart-phones and tablets, the way people browse the internet or stay connected has changed. We have come to a point where people read their e-mails, perform financial transactions and make purchases over the internet, often times using smart-phones or tablets. The technology is constantly improving and changing the way we behave, work and play, and it is important for lead generation businesses to keep up with evolving technologies and their effect on visitor behavior and conversions.
Before we dwell in to what responsive design can do for your business and how large the impact is, check out the new responsive designed boberdoo.com website in the video below. We certainly practice what we preach.
Since the tablet/mobile explosion in last few years, the amount of internet browsing from mobile phones is constantly growing. In several beta tests, boberdoo found that over 30% of search traffic was performed from mobile browsers. That is a significant amount of traffic that will simply exit before traditional websites even finish loading due to the time images and other attributes take to load. With this in mind, web designers had to come up with something to make their website viewable on these small screens. Not to mention these tablets use touch technology, retina screens and mobile internet has slower broadband.
Faced with this challenge, a business a three options:
- Create a separate site only for mobile browsers
- Ignore the issue altogether
- Create a responsive designed website
The problem with having a mobile version of your website is that you have to maintain two websites at the same time, more money out of your pockets and put SEO efforts in both websites. The second point is to ignore a large amount of potential buyers, visitors and subscribers for saving a relatively small investment on your website. Missing out on large amount of potential customers, subscribers and visitors because your website is not optimized seems like a poor management of your lead generation business. Smartphone users are typically available 24/7 because the phone is always with them, making it way more personal than desktop PC. Mobile web browsing has risen since 2007 and continues to grow each year. In addition, summer of 2013 marks the point at which mobile internet users will overtake desktop internet users. Basically, it is about 50/50 that you are scrolling through this article on your iPhone or Galaxy.
Does this affect the lead generation industry, and more importantly, your online business? Only if you advertise on email, paid search, display, TV/Radio or any other marketing method that drives traffic to your website. If you are running a lead generation business and you do not have a responsive designed website, you are missing out on many potential clients. The return on investment from having a responsive website should make the decision a no-brainer. How much is it worth to your business for your website and/or landing page to look in the same professional manner regardless of the visitor’s device or browser?
We believe responsive websites will become standard practice in web design in the very near future and there is an opportunity for your lead generation business to capture additional conversions versus the competition by implementing responsive designed websites ahead of the curve. Other than just having a website, making your content available to mobile users is the second best thing you can do for your lead generation business in terms of return-on-investment.