Mobile has become a key part of our lives, yet most companies still lack a mobile strategy and do not allocate budgets for mobile solutions. While business owners acknowledge using mobile devices for work and personal use, they have not yet adopted mobile technology in their organizations. It appears that the mobile revolution has quietly integrated into our lives, highlighting the need for education about its effects on business.

That is why today I will be talking on mobile revolution, the importance of mobile sites for SMBs and next steps in new technologies.

Why companies should have mobile versions of their websites?

It’s about adapting to the world we live in. Rapid advancements in technology force us to change our habits. One area where we see this change is the Internet, especially in how we use it. Today, over 50% of mobile phone users own smartphones and access the Internet on their devices.

Smartphone users expect that when they enter a website they will receive the same level of service as when they view a particular site on a desktop computer, or a laptop. This is where we approach the question whether a website that has been targeted at desktop computers will provide an equal level of user experience. In the great majority of cases – it will not. I will enumerate only the most important reasons: long loading time, inconvenient necessity to enlarge/downsize the website to find information, unsuitability for touch operation, or lack of the mobile user context.

You can ask if this is really so important. Is it not that when someone enters my website, they will, regardless of whether it is mobile optimized or not, manage one way or another? Research carried out by Google shows that 61% of mobile users who come across a website that is not adjusted to their device, abandone it and go back to search. When we add that according to Morgan Stanley, already this year the number of users accessing the Internet on mobile devices will outnumber desktop searchers, the takeaways are quite obvious.

Let us look at this issue from another perspective. Companies spend huge amounts on positioning their websites and on Internet marketing. You may ask how this fact is connected with optimalization for the mobile channel. Already in 2013 Google modified their search algorithms and began to promote websites which are adjusted to displaying on mobile devices. So if we have been working hard to position our website high in the search results, we can easily lose it now. It looks similar in case of Internet advertising. When a mobile user enters an ad, they usually go to a lading page that is not adjusted to their device and leaves.

Summing up, companies that will not adjust their Internet services to the expectations of mobile device users, will be losing customers and money.

How much does it cost to create a mobile site?

It is hard to answer this question. The price depends on various factors. I will give only the main ones: the complexity level of the solution, the technology, and whether we will order it with an agency, or do it ourselves, using the tools available out there on the market.

Big companies will, most probably, decide on professional interactive agencies. The budgets for these solutions will approach several hundred Euros, on average. Small businesses, which want to limit their expenses can create a professional mobile site for their company themselves, using ready tools available on the Internet. Using mobile website builders involves a cost of around 50 Euros annually.

We should expect further dynamic development of the mobile sector all around the world. New devices will be used on a daily basis, such as the more and more popular smart watches. In a wider context we will be witnessing the development of the ecosystem called “The Internet of Things”, which is a vision assuming that various devices from our environment will be conntected to the Internet, and will provide us with an integrated unified system of communicating with the world.

This post was originally published on ActiveMobi.