Episode 22: Mobile Website Design Brisbane

Starting a New Website? - Learn more about Web Design Brisbane here

ALSO LISTEN ON

READ THE TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE 22 BELOW

[00:00:00]  Saul: Hi everybody, and welcome to the Web Design Brisbane podcast. This is episode number 22. And today's episode is entitled Mobile Website Design Brisbane. My name is Saul Edmonds. And as usual, I'm joined by the lovely Gillian Smith. 

[00:00:13]  Gillian: Good morning today, Saul.

[00:00:14]  Saul:  Oh, good morning. What a lovely morning it is. We are the co -founders and creative directors of Random House, the creative agency, a local business with a passion for helping our clients grow. Over to you, Gil.

[00:00:25]  Gillian: Okay, well, today we'll be talking about mobile website design, and why a mobile friendly website is so important for your business in 2019, and beyond. Our goal is to help small business owners, start-ups and entrepreneurs in the city of Brisbane, Australia, take their opportunities to the next level with brilliant website design. If you're visiting us from another location, or city, welcome. Thanks for joining us. And we hope that we can help you grow your business in the online space

[00:00:54]  Saul: What are today's topics? 

[00:00:55]  Gillian: Well, today, it's all about mobile websites are fast, fully responsive mobile website ensures, and you connect with your audience on the go, whatever they did whatever device they're on, be it smartphone, tablet, or desktop. So today, we'll start with the question sort of what is a mobile website? And from there, we're going to ask what is a responsive website? It says a little bit of confusion around those topics, and finally, our key question will be, why should you invest in a mobile friendly website design? Okay, let's get started. Saul,  you're the website expert. What is a mobile website?

[00:01:36]  Saul: Yes, good question. What is a mobile website?  Okay. So like Gillian said, There is actually a lot of confusion around this, because for a lot of people, if they see a website on their mobile on their on their smartphone, therefore, it's a mobile site, which makes sense in there, you've got responsive websites, which we'll get to in a second. But a mobile website, strictly speaking, is a website that is fully optimized for the mobile experience so an easy way to say it is that it acts more like an app.  If you were to download an app from iTunes, or from Google Play, the experience that you have is specific, there's generally not a lot of scrolling, there's an interface, things happen all on the same screen, and there's different ways that you navigate through whatever that is on an app. So it's a very similar deal on a mobile website, it acts and feels more like an app, and it suits use on a mobile, which is less screen real state overall, even though smartphones are really quite big these days, there's less screen real estate so that informs how you actually never guide and why use a website on your mobile.

[00:03:05]  Gillian: And it has its own URL, not just a standard normal domain, it has a separate URL for mobile specific side. 

[00:03:12]  Saul: Yeah, that's right. Well, unless your main website is also a mobile site, then yes, that's right. So if you've got a mobile website, and the way that we generally work is that you've got your main URL so if it was us, its brand has.cc. And then create a mobile version of so it might be on a separate domain altogether. Or, traditionally, a lot of people do it on a subdomain, which would be something like mobile.roundhouse.cc. And then when a person views your normal website, so with us man has thought CC, on the smartphone, it automatically so which is over to the mobile version, and you still have an option there, which a lot of people may have seen, there's still an option, usually, at the bottom somewhere, if people really want to navigate back to the main website, they can, but they've got a mobile experience otherwise.  

[00:04:16]  Gillian: Okay, so thanks for that overview on mobile websites. Now, that brings us to responsive websites is a responsive website, the same as a mobile website, what can you tell us? 

[00:04:27]  Saul: No, it's not. It's a mobile friendly website. mobile friendly means that you can still like all website these days, let's put it this way, all websites these days are generally responsive websites, meaning that the content on your website responds and changes to the screen in which it's being viewed on. So if you've got a toll narrower screen, like you do on a mobile, if you're holding it in the normal way, then the content, which you will usually if you on your laptop, or your desktop in a particular way, in landscape will change and adapt. Either parts will go underneath other bits in order so that you can still view the content on the website, but you can view it well, and you don't have to pinch and zoom on you on your smartphone to see the content.

[00:05:28]  Gillian: So why should you invest in a mobile friendly website? 

[00:05:32]  Saul: So a mobile friendly website? some reasons that you might do that is that has to do with Google one, one reason has to do with Google, and this is a more,  not that recent, but a fairly recent changes that they're moving over to giving certain preferences in rankings to sites that are more mobile optimized, and mobile friendly site is the best example of that, because more and more traffic is going to the smartphone experience people it's being driven by what people have how people are viewing things on the internet, in general, there's more and more of that is actually happening on their smartphones.

[00:06:26]  Gillian: What do you know about bounce rates for sites that aren't optimized for mobile?

[00:06:31]  Saul: Bounce rates, so that comes down once again, just to the simple fact that people are having a good or a bad experience. We'll use the example yet again, of say, I treat person, a person is warning to has some emergency, say in an extreme example, they've got some emergency, they've got access to the smartphone, like most people do, they pull it out of pocket, and they search straightaway for a trades person to do a particular sort of work that they need to have done urgently, and they come across, three sites, the first side is a responsive site as a lot of content on the homepage, it still has a call to action to call, but, and I can still see it, but they're quickly looking at a range of different sides quite quickly on their phone, and they come across number two, which is a mobile specific website, that's got exactly what they want. straightaway, the call, it's optimized, it's very simple for them to do that in a much more ready way, they go for that straight away because that responds to immediate needs.

[00:07:49]  Gillian: Okay, so I guess that's all goes back to your customer, your audience and understanding how they browse and how they find your services. 

[00:07:55]  Saul: Yeah, that's right. So then the bounce rate just to get back to that point.  Bounce rate is the right at which somebody enters your site, and then leaves your site so if you've got a very high bounce rate on your website, that means you've got more users coming into your homepage, the entry point on your website, and leaving very quickly and so that has to do with

[00:08:18]  Gillian: That's a good performance metric to take note of, too, 

[00:08:21]  Saul: Yeah, because it tells you a range of different things that you need to address something on your website as to why they're doing that,   that could be because a lot of your users, like we said, are coming on mobile, you might have for some reason,  65 to 70% of people are coming to your site on mobile for some reason, and therefore, if your mobile version of your website is a really bad experience, but your desktop version is an okay, experience, then you've got something at least that  you have to address.

[00:08:56]  Gillian: Okay, Saul, so what are your final tips for people considering investing a mobile website or a responsive website? It is really a mobile friendly website?

[00:09:05]  Saul: Yeah, that's right. So our responsive website is any website that we would offer or most people would generally offer but if you are deciding whether you want to have a mobile website, as well, a mobile specific version, that you should really wake up, the potential advantages that's going to give your potential clients or your existing clients for the experience on your website, if they're looking on a smartphone, and.. 

[00:09:38]  Gillian: It is a better experience will translate into conversion rates. 

[00:09:41]  Saul: Yeah, that's right. And just as another side point there, too, is you might also consider a mobile version of your website might actually be not necessarily just a mobile version of the same side, it might have some other purpose in my before a specific campaign that you want people who are looking who will only be looking at it on their smartphone, to have a certain experience and really With that in mind, that's about it for today. I think guys regarding mobile and responsive websites before we go please don't forget to rate review and subscribe to this podcast would love to hear your feedback. Also, if you'd like to read the transcript of this episode, please visit our website at roundhouse.cc forward slash web-design. We are a journey to help local Brisbane businesses grow their opportunities online and exceed their goals. Thanks for listening and we'll see you tomorrow. Bye 

[00:010:43]  Gillian: bye for now.