How do you check your emails, browse Google or catch up on the latest viral videos?
Chances are, it’s not your desktop anymore – more likely than not, it’s on your mobile!
We’ve reached the point where many people are forgoing traditional desktop PCs and performing all their (non-work related) internet usage on mobile devices. Make no mistake, this is a major shift in the digital landscape.
And it’s one that your tradie website needs to be ready for!
Why is that?
1) A mobile-friendly site improves the user experience
Have you ever brought up a website on your phone, only to be greeted by tiny text, unviewable images and slow load times?
How likely are you to stick around on that site?
“Not very” is the most likely answer!
Your site might be full of glowing testimonials. You might have a catalogue of successful jobs and repairs. It might do a great job communicating your experience and know-how.
But if using it is a struggle, visitors are unlikely to stick around – and therefore, are less likely to give you a ring.
A mobile-friendly website improves user experience, as it keeps your tradie website responsive, fast and easy to use – all of which keeps mobile visitors on your tradie website and ups the chances that they’ll give you a call.
2) Mobile-friendly tradie websites appear first in search engines
It isn’t just the user experience that’s enhanced by having a mobile-friendly tradie website – so too are your search rankings!
That’s because Google has also realised that the future of the internet is mobile, and is tweaking its systems and algorithms accordingly.
A little bit over a year ago, Google officially rolled out mobile-first indexing. Like the name suggests, this change to Google’s search algorithm turned mobile friendliness from a “nice to have” to a crucial ranking factor.
This applies to all Google searches, including the ones done on desktop.
If your tradie site isn’t mobile-friendly already, you could be missing out on a substantial boost to your page rankings!
3) The future is mobile
According to Quartz, a whopping 70% of all internet traffic comes from smartphones nowadays.
And that percentage might be even higher for tradies!
Consider that many of your callouts are “reactive”. They’ll be coming from people who’ve just had something go wrong, such as a burst pipe, electrical fault or unexpected engine problem.
They’ll need a fix, ASAP – and in many cases, they won’t have time to find a desktop PC. Instead, they whip out their mobile phones, do a quick Google search and click the first tradie website they find.
That’s a lot of potential jobs and callouts – as such, it’s crucial that websites for tradies are as mobile-friendly as physically possible!
Responsive web design is the answer
Thankfully, the majority of content management systems (CMS – the systems that create and modify websites) come with responsive web design built-in.
Basically, responsive design allows websites for tradies to detect how big the user’s screen is, or which device they’re viewing on (desktop, tablet, smartphone, etc).
Armed with this information, your website automatically scales to provide the optimal user experience.
You can try this out yourself, even – open up a website on your desktop, and resize the window. Does the menu, drop-down menus and structure automatically adjust as you shrink as you go?
That’s responsive web design in action!
Thanks to responsive web design, mobile-friendly websites for tradies are possible – without the extra work and hassle that comes with maintaining and running a separate, dedicated mobile website.
Mobile-friendliness goes beyond that, however…
In addition to having mobile-friendliness baked-in, it’s important that the content on your site is optimised for mobile too!
For starters, you have to deal with a much smaller screen. That means less space to fit content, written or otherwise.
Not to mention, mobile users are a different viewing audience. In our experience, mobile viewing sessions are significantly shorter than desktop – something that the data backs us up on.
As such, content that’s optimised for mobile needs to be nice and snappy.
iformat makes mobile-friendly websites for tradies
If your goal is to turn your tradie website into a mobile-friendly one, we’re the team to call!
Our team can take existing websites for tradies and apply responsive web design principles and mobile-friendly content marketing to your existing tradie website.
Our work doesn’t end there, however – we also work hard to ensure that every other aspect of your digital strategy is bringing in the jobs and calls that you want.
The goal? To get your phone ringing more!
Contact iformat today on 1300 88 64 50 or contact us to see how we can help with your SEO, PPC, web design, maintenance and more.
