Across the web around 1/3 of internet traffic is from mobile devices and that percentage is growing. How should your business handle it?
Most small businesses are late to embrace mobile and they’re missing out. At the other end of the spectrum are small businesses that are wasting money on mobile technologies they don’t need.
For example, we get small businesses asking if they need a mobile app or if they should have a different website for each device. Some businesses rush into each new mobile fad they hear about, but there will always be new fads. This is the wrong way to think about mobile.
Think back to around 2006 when the mobile revolution was just beginning. What was the big thing? It was .mobi domains. Too many businesses wasted thousands of dollars on .mobi websites.
The.mobi craze seems silly now, right? But remember that .mobi domains kind of made sense back then. Anything can make sense when it’s new because there’s so much uncertainty. Remember this, it’s a very expensive thing to forget.
Mobile matters, but rushing in and chasing fads is the wrong thing to do–especially for small businesses on a budget. Unless your business has a specific use case for a mobile technology, a responsive website is probably good enough to satisfy your mobile needs.
The best new responsive websites are built with HTML 5 and work seamlessly across all devices, from desktops to tables and smartphones. This means you only need one website to serve ALL of your customers, this is what sets responsive websites apart. We’re big fans of HTML5 responsive design and use it in all of our business website templates.
Updating your website to a responsive design will allow you to serve all your customers on any device without wasting thousands of dollars. Though we’ll continue to see new mobile fads come and go, a responsive website is a smart bet for now.