If you think simply having a solid website is going to help your small business be successful, you’re – unfortunately – sadly mistaken.
Gone is the time when just hosting your own spot on the Internet was enough to get your message out to the public. The explosion of social media onto the interwebs a little more than a decade ago – and the resulting overwhelming success of the medium among every single measurable demographic – means only having a website just doesn’t cut it any longer.
Additionally, the first iPhone was sold to the public in June 2007, which was quickly followed by other smartphone brands. For the first time since the inception of the Internet, there was another way to access the worldwide web other than on a desktop or laptop computer.
Do you still need that awesome website you invested so much of your small business’ capital and your own time into? Yes! You’ll also need to continue to improve your site’s search engine optimization (SEO) so customers will come to you when they go to Google.
But no matter how good your site looks on someone’s desktop or laptop computer, it is imperative your site has to be mobile-friendly.
Why?
In August 2014, for the first time in history, mobile consumption of the Internet finally outpaced desktop usage*. That means it only took a little more than seven years after the first iPhone appeared on the market for mobile usage to outpace desktop and laptop usage. The separation in people using their mobile devices – smartphones, tablets, watches, etc. – has only continued to increase in the past two and a half years.
If your customers are doing a Google search for what your business offers on their iPhone or Android device and are directed to your site but it doesn’t render correctly on their device, guess what they are going to do? That’s right – they’re going to go back to their Google search, click on the next result and visit that site. If that site has done a better job of being mobile-friendly, you’ve lost a customer.
The proliferation and popularity of social media has also provided more substantive entry points to your business’ website. While Google is still cock of the walk when it comes to search engines, more and more people – your potential customers – are going to Facebook and other social media to find out about your business … and your competition. Having a healthy social media presence that directs potential customers to your website is essential in 2017.
Having a website for your business remains important, but making certain it is mobile-friendly and accessible to everyone by any delivery means possible is integral to your success. While content will always be king, it doesn’t matter how good your content is if your customers can’t find it or access it on their mobile devices.