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Mobile Website Design in 2021 - What You Need to Know

February 10, 2021

If your website isn’t mobile-optimized, you (and your audience) are missing out. In 2021, mobile websites are essential. 

Why? Because mobile devices are in almost everyone's hands, from smartphones to tablets, you want your business website to be accessible by every available device.

“Mobile is becoming not only the new digital hub, but also the bridge to the physical world. That’s why mobile will affect more than just your digital operations - it will transform your entire business.” - Thomas Husson, VP, and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

The Future of Mobile Design

In 2020, smartphones were responsible for 50.8% of global website traffic. However, it’s been hovering around 50% since 2017. Global users are expected to increase to 3.8 billion worldwide by mid 2021. 

“Mobile is not the future, it is now. Meet your customers in the environment of their choice, not where it is convenient for you.” - Cyndie Shaffstall, founder, Spider Trainers 

What is a Mobile Responsive Website?

A mobile responsive website is a website that is designed to be optimized for hand-held devices - tablets and smartphones. A mobile responsive website adapts to the size and aspect ratio of the screen it is being viewed on. 

When a website visitor views a website from the computer, websites tend to utilize empty space to frame the content displayed in the center or the upper third. When you view this same website on a mobile device with a mobile responsive theme, these elements are typically stacked on top of each other. This is a clever tactic to ensure that the menus and imagery of your website is conveniently accessible and easily viewable on any device, whether vertically or horizontally laid out.

You want to create a responsive mobile website design that will do the following:

Collect More Leads for Your Business

More traffic is generated from mobile devices, than computers - and that’s good news! The bad news is that mobile conversion rates can be more challenging to come by than those made through a desktop. Despite that - it’s not impossible, just a challenge. 

That’s where a mobile responsive website design comes in. With a mobile responsive website, you can utilize the space to collect email addresses. When you email visitors your newsletter or other information, they’ll get a link that allows them to visit your website - on any device. While not everyone wants to be on another mailing list, offering an incentive can make capturing leads directly from your homepage a much easier feat.

Eliminate Excess Content

Mobile devices are notorious for giving users more options. They offer choices and features with every new update and model release. Web design has also followed this pattern. Due to this growth, it is often difficult to fit all relevant information into a smaller screen. 

Thankfully website designers build these elements into responsively designed sites, allowing for contextual resizing and formatting to present your content in exactly the way it was intended. 

Leverage Available Space

Your typical desktop webpage design is in landscape format. Mobile displays are primarily portrait format. With a portrait format, your space is limited, presenting you with the challenge of prioritizing certain information for immediate consumption, and making other content easily accessible through intuitive menus and prompts.. 

Leverage this space by cutting out non-critical content and move the critical information to the center. If you’re using a photograph, make sure it’s relevant to your business. The homepage menu should be clean, well-balanced, and convey your message clearly.

Put a Spotlight on Your Visual Content

Once you’ve leveraged your available space, make sure you are putting a spotlight on your visual content. Your visual content is directly representative of your brand's image. Believe it or not, mobile screens can be great for storytelling because of how the content is laid out in a way that encourages user engagement..

Encourage a Leaner Desktop Experience

By using a mobile responsive website design, you are encouraging a leaner desktop experience. Leaner desktop experiences are much more attractive, clean, and a lot less cluttered than your standard desktop web design. 

Navigation is moved out of the way while branding logos are minimized, which allows your website visitor to focus on the welcome message. 

With a leaner desktop design, the transition between mobile and computer is virtually seamless.

Enhance Readability

Whatever you do - don’t cram everything into the space. It’s human nature to want to fill up space, especially if we feel all of the information is relevant. But cramming simply won’t work. It makes the website look cluttered and messy. 

A few things you can do for a mobile website design is:

The result is a cleaner, easier-to-read, mobile-friendly design. 

Wrapping Up

This may seem like a lot of work. It is.

And that’s OK! Your website is your greatest marketing tool, and if you’re not experienced in maintaining your tools, you’re not alone. Most business owners aren’t. 

That’s where we come in. Carrboro Creative is a results-driven creative agency that offers website care plans, custom website design, brand development, graphic design, SEO, and more. Contact us today for a free quote and let us show you how we can keep your website fresh, keep new visitors rolling in, and care for your website so you can get back to running your business. 

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