Many companies assume that no one will actually fill out a form or a buy a product through a cell phone, and in most cases, they are correct. However, this does not mean that a company should ignore the fact that people can become interested in your product or service by looking at your website through a phone. According to a study by Telemtrics, 46 percent of searchers now use mobile exclusively to research.
So this is obvious to most small business owners—mobile is only getting more important. 
What many companies then do is create a strategy to help their website convert well onto the small screen (usually through responsive web design) and create marketing campaigns that cater to those using a mobile phone. But what about creating an entirely new website specifically for mobile? Is this still good advice, or is this idea a thing of the past?
How to Create a Website for the Mobile Phone
Creating a specific website just for mobile can still work for many companies. Unfortunately, creating a website that favors the small screen is quite different than a website you would create for a desktop. This puts extra pressure on web designers because they have to create a website for both a desktop as well as a mobile-optimized version. If you do not have a web designer, then thinking about these different ways customers get information will be important. A website is usually the first thing a startup company creates, so there are a few things to bear in mind:
- Keep Your Content to a Minimum
No one wants to read a lot of little content on a cell phone. The first thing you can do is weed out the information on your current website that isn’t absolutely relevant. Once you’ve done that, you should begin going through the content you do want to include and shortening it up. This will help your website load quicker, making your visitors much more likely to wait around to see what your website has to offer.
- Focus on Your Navigation
It can be very difficult to navigate through a website on a mobile phone. For this reason, you will want to pay attention to where you place your navigation bar. Most experts recommend that you do not put the navigation at the top of the homepage unless you have very little content on that homepage. If your company is primarily used for searches, this may be the way to go. If not, consider putting the navigation at the bottom. This will help keep your content up top and will therefore not confuse readers.
- Think Big When Linking
Most mobile phones used today are smart phones. In other words, most people navigating your website will be using a touch screen. When creating your website for a touch screen, you must make sure that the links you include are big enough and spread out enough for people to correctly click (this will also be just fine if they’re not using a smart phone). This is probably one of the most frustrating things for those looking to visit a website on a mobile phone, so make sure your website does not annoy your visitors.
- Utilize the Common Features of a Cell Phone
Cell phones are obviously used to make calls, so add a “call now” button on your mobile website. This is something that may not be a good use of space on a desktop, but works great for the mobile screen. On that same note, consider putting a button that allows the viewer to find your address on a GPS or find the nearest location if you have a few offices.
The generation that grew up with technology is now entering the workforce and they are being given company credit cards and beginning to spend their own money, and they are doing their through their mobile phones. Many people do not go anywhere without their phone and are spending a significant amount of extra money just to have the Internet on that phone. If companies took advantage of this fact, they will certainly be pleasantly surprised. After all, with the popularity of QR codes and social networking, people are more interested in having the internet at their fingertips than ever before.
Amanda, totally dig the tips. It’s marketing suicide to write off mobile. As for people adopt mobile and buy devices we’ll see more buys, and forms filled out, and all that stuff that mobile users like me, and many other folks ignore now. I use my tablet for one touch tweeting, or for responding with 2 or 3 words, but one day, we’ll move in a different direction and you better be ready to go with mobile design or perish at this point 😉
Awesome message here. Everywhere I look during my travels I see people using their mobile devices. If it’s good or bad, I don’t know. Personal connections and interactions suffer but we are seeing a brand new world of opportunities opening up for responsive design and other prospering opps for the mobile audience.
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Thanks for reading Ryan! I couldn’t agree more and I like that you referenced when you travel around you see mobile devices as well. They’re everywhere and will only continue to grow!
Agree with all the point,
Whenever I visit a website on my phone, the biggest challenge is to navigate through different pages.
Other things I hate include, the useless stuff here and there.
Also, I want the mobile version of the websites to be light because few websites just crash my mobile browser.
Nowadays people use mobile more than laptop or tablet,even some recent research have shown that how fast the number of mobile users are increasing in usa and that’s why search engines like google preferring those sites which have a mobile version for their readers.But creating a website only for mobile is something new to me and I like this innovative idea of your and also appreciate the work of sharing this idea through this post.So thanks for sharing those superb tips of creating a website for mobile phone only.
Hey Amanda
Well it is important to have a mobile specific website for you business or may be for you blog. It is also not that hard to get one. There is another good way to serve your users better. you can opt responsive theme which is also a good thing to go for. It will work with any screen size. It doesn’t matter if he is using it on iPad, iMac or on the normal mobile phone.
Thanks for the update.: ) 🙂
Peace
ASHI
Exactly Ashi! Responsive web design is great, so I sort of wrote this article to see if anyone is still creating an entirely new website just for mobile (this way they can add features specifically for mobile searches). I think it all depends on your type of business and your company. Thanks for reading!
Hi Amanda,
This is a relevant post now that almost everyone owns a mobile device. Mobile devices have helped the busy ones to read blogs during travel and all. This in fact have boosted up the number of people as well the time spent time on web. Web designers and developers can never ignore it and just stick with a desktop version for a site. Be it a small business, a personal site or anything, I believe the site should be optimized for mobile view also. Keeping it minimal and simple is the key to get good opinions as far as mobile sites are concerned.
Thanks for sharing your points through this post.
—
Jakes
Hello,
I guess creating website which are mobile friendly is really essential these days as majority of users are from mobiles or smartphone or tablets.
Thanks for the tips
Ordering via smartphone will soon also overtake ordering via desktop, just as searching via mobile gadgets is currently. Since the screen is smaller, what many designers don’t seem to get, is to place an order button right near the top. Some of these sales pitches go on and on for pages (which may be ok as copy in general), but the order button is right at the bottom (only). Rather, place several buttons throughout the text and use them also to analyze at which point the users start buying (by making the button links different from position to position).
Hey Amanda,
This is a very timely post you have here. In Facebook alone, studies conducted by app experts shows that 60% of its billion users are using mobile devices to open and navigate through its pages. Sad part is, even Facebook fails to deliver these web pages right through mobile phones. One has to actually download or install a separate app to be able to see their pages on Facebook. This is a crack that needs to be fixed soon or marketers relying on traffic for conversions will wake up one morning to only work in vain.
By the way, I found this post shared on kingged
Best,
Ann
Now a days people are turning to mobile than desktop sites so we should focus on building mobile websites now. Also, WordPress themes are now a days are coming with responsive features which does not need any programming skills to build mobile friendly website.
So happy everyone is agreeing with the article and understands the importance of mobile. It will be interesting to see where it all goes in the next few years!
Hi Amanda,
This is a relevant post now that almost everyone owns a mobile device. Mobile devices have helped the busy ones to read blogs during travel and all.I like your ideas about the Article. I shall try to follow your tips and tricks on my niches while writing articles.
Hello,
I think it is very useful to create mobile friendly website because due to increase in technology these days peoples are continuously using mobile gadgets like tablet and smartphones so it is really a necessary to do optimization of mobile theme.
Creating mobile site for your business is a must. Because mobile users are increasing exponentially and it will cross the desktop users in this year or so. Nice post
Hi Amanda,
Really helpful tips here to help improve websites. Nowadays people use mobiles over computers to browse the internet, and by using the tips above i can apply them to my websites.
Thank You
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for sharing the tips for designing mobile website. It is true that with the increase in use of mobile device, nowadays most of visitors are coming from mobile. So it is better to design a responsive website.
Yes, we all know a lot of people are surfuing web from thier smartphones so we must make our website that looks good in mobiles also.
Thanks for sharing.
I am head of webdesign company and we are designing almost most every projects responsive
Not having a mobile site is a slow suicide by any serious blog. I’ve even stumbled upon a few responsive websites which fail miserably when it comes to using comment plugins and effects which destroys the whole browsing experience.
Thank you for some very useful tips that I could incorporate into my own blog.
Thank you everyone for reading. I do agree that even responsive web designs can sometimes fail–so you’re never in the clear. You actually have to work to make sure your mobile presence is solid!
Hello Amanda,
the post is very informative. But one thing i do want to add is, while designing your site for mobile you should look for browser support. As i have a site with HTML5 template in which i used instead of DIV for styling images, but it only works on Android 4.xx versions. In older android version ( ex 2.3 Gingerbread ) the site loads up in unmanned fashion. Also Customizing the sites for Mobile is easy : with media queries.
Going mobile is an absolute must. Let’s not forget phones AND tablets are mobile devices so use responsive themes and make sure they look good on all platforms.
You are correct! Can’t forget about the tablet!
hello Amanda, i totally understand your point, but don’t you think its feasible to build only one website which is responsive to all types of devices? I decided to build my responsive design after reading this article.
Yes it absolutely is, but I knew that creating another website was another option so I wanted to explore whether or not that still makes sense for some people. A responsive design, in my opinion, is definitely the way to go!
Good stuff. I’m still preparing myself to move my blog from Squarespace 5 to Squarespace 6 (with its responsive design) but already I generally prefer mobile sites given they are less fancy and less distracting.
I think in most applications creating a separate mobile website is not the way to go. There are cases where it applies, but a good bit of mobile specific sites are minimal to the point that they leave users hungry for content/features.
You brought up Responsive design, which I believe is the way that most sites should be built and are being built.
One thing to keep in mind with responsive design is taking a “mobile first” approach. This means that your site is optimized and designed for mobile users while scaling up to tablet and desktop versions. The reason mobile first responsive design is the best approach is that it ensures that mobile users aren’t being served massive files and images that will slow down load time, while at the same time allows for a fulfilling website experience.
hi Amanda,
I totally agree with the tips. To write off mobile. is to kill your marketing efforts .With the development of phones,and tablet it will be necessery to adapt websites to mobiles too. We better be ready to go with mobile design or perish at some point.
Couldn’t agree more!