Mobile Matters: Building Mobile-Friendly Websites vs. Mobile Apps

With 81% of adults in the UK owning a Smartphone, one thing is certain – the age of mobile is upon us. Indeed, in 2015 Google announced that mobile searches far exceed that of desktop searches, making it clear that mobile is a critical element for business success. In fact, following an update to its search algorithm, Google now decreases the search engine ranking of web pages which are not optimised for mobile. 

Whilst on the surface, mobile websites and apps can look very similar, determine which is most suited to your needs depends on a number of factors. Arguably, the most important being your end goals.

If your goal is to offer optimised content to the widest possible audience, a mobile-friendly website is the way to go. Moreover, does it make sense to build an app without already having a mobile-optimised website in place? 

The fact of the matter is that mobile-friendly websites have a number of advantages over apps, including greater accessibility, compatibility, and cost-effectiveness.

So, whilst many business owners wonder whether they need to create an app to get noticed on mobile devices, the hard truth is that most users download few to no new apps each month. This not only makes it difficult to get noticed but even harder to make a return on investment.

Therefore, it seems the focus should be on designing mobile-friendly websites. This is especially true when it comes to e-commerce. Indeed, within the next few years phones are expected to count for the majority of purchases online, meaning any company engaging in e-commerce should be focusing on the mobile side of their business.

Furthermore, the good news is that developing a mobile site need not be difficult. For example, the majority of the world’s e-commerce portals rely on one of a few simple and dominant platforms, the favourite being Magento.

In fact, a quarter of all e-commerce sites are built on the Magento platform. Which is unsurprising as Magento offers pretty much everything an e-commerce site needs to showcase products, carry out online transactions, provide customer service and run backend processes efficiently.

However, the debate is likely to continue, and businesses still have a number of important choices to make when it comes to becoming mobile. Yet, the first thing you need to know is what your needs are, both now and in the future.  

To find out more about how a mobile website can help your business succeed, get in touch with our team today.