As far back as 2010, statistics showed that mobile phones got more use as data devices than they did for placing phone calls. And with the huge proliferation of both phones and tablets since then, those numbers only increased.
Clearly, your customers and prospects are on the move – so choosing a mobile website design company becomes an inbound marketing priority. The right design agency puts your business in its best light no matter how, when and where a user finds it.
End-user oriented. The goal of a mobile website is not to win design awards for the agency. The goal isn’t even to provide bragging rights for your company. The goal is to engage the end-user – the customer or prospect – with immediate engagement, logical navigation and easy-to-use buttons that foster responses.
Device-agnostic. Today’s sites need to adapt to every device dimension – from the big screen of the PC to the littlest smartphone, to all those major- and mini-tablets in between. A device-agnostic approach refers to one that’s compatible with any device. Your mobile website design agency ideally agrees with the design site Codrops, which notes that device-agnostic design is about how the web deals in views, not pixels, and “how our designs will be displayed in these different views.”
Content-focused. When it comes to inbound marketing, content is king. Always has been, and likely will continue to be. So when choosing a mobile website design agency, look at the contenders’ samples with an eye toward the content. Are headlines and text easy to see and understand, benefit-oriented? Is the call to action placed where people can find it? Or is the valuable content buried under layers of “edgy” artwork and fonts – or worse, saddled with accessibility-compromising text in images?
SEO-savvy. From your homepage to your blog, search engine optimization (SEO) keywords ultimately help dictate your Google, Bing or Chrome page rankings. Google gurus recently warned that pages with faulty mobile SEO risk lower placements in device-based searches.
Committed to consistency. Even as people are more used to whipping out their tablets or smartphones to collect any and all data, there’s still a point at which the screen they see – yours – may be an unfamiliar one. So the quality of the experience needs to stay consistent, and consistency begins with branding. Your logo shown in the same position on any device, for instance, delivers such consistency. “Content may be presented in different format depending onscreen size, but should not change substantially,” notes the global design firm Dragon Rouge. “Consistent and brand-compliant content from a single source is the goal.”
Socially active. Devices are for play, not just work – witness the huge amount of traffic to social media like Facebook and Twitter driven from smartphones and tablets. Your mobile website design agency has a handle on the way devices play into social media, and consults on your social pages accordingly. Social pages that complement website designs are another example of how consistency leads to better branding.
Proven and flexible. Ultimately, the mobile website design company you choose will dazzle you with a portfolio of layouts that foster the ideal user experience, while remaining flexible enough to accommodate the unique goals of your business.
