85It’s time for most businesses to re-do their websites. Yes, even if you’ve only had your’s for a few years (don’t shoot the messenger). Here’s the reasoning…

We all know that more and more people are using their phones and tablets to access the internet. What you may not know, is that by 2014, mobile internet is expected to overtake desktop usage. The majority of people will be using mobile devices when they go on the internet!

So when was the last time you viewed your website from a smart phone or tablet? If it wasn’t originally designed to auto-adjust for different sized screens, then you will likely find it is hard to read and even harder to use. So will your customers.

A study by Compuware found that almost 57% of users will never recommend a company with a bad website. I’m not saying that your current website is bad when accessed from a full-sized desktop monitor – but it may be absolutely terrible when viewed from a 3.5″ screen.
The same study also found that 40% of the people would rather use a competitor’s website than a poorly designed one.
So what’s the solution? Convert your site to one with a responsive design.
That means a site that is able to adopt its design and layout to fit the specifications of the device calling it. It does this by automatically and dynamically changing to different screen sizes and by reformatting the positioning and look of the elements of the website. So what may appear to be a website with large images spread through three columns on a computer screen, will appear to have smaller images in a single column on a mobile screen. See the photo above for an example.

Some businesses have chosen to develop a separate mobile site and not change their main site. That’s a really bad idea, starting with why anyone would intentionally want to double their work and costs to keep a site fresh and current, by maintaining two sites instead of one. If you’re tempted to do this, please call me first so that I can talk you out of it.

Contact your web developer and start a discussion about this. Here at Root-InfoTech we specialize in converting existing websites into responsive websites, so you don’t have to throw out your investment to-date. Just don’t put this on the back burner. The time to act is now – get ahead of your competition and be prepared for the increasing onslaught of mobile devices that will be used to do business with you on the internet.