Is your nonprofit focusing on mobile design? If not, you could be missing out on a huge portion of customers and revenue. Mobile-friendly web design is no longer a nice to have, it’s a need to have.
The reason for this is simple: mobile traffic has exploded in recent years.
As of March 2017, a whopping 80% of Alexa’s top websites were mobile-adaptive. As if that weren’t enough, 80% of web users own smartphones, and web users spend more than 69% of their total media time on smartphones.
With all these things in mind, it’s clear that focusing on mobile traffic is essential for your nonprofit and, that, when you do it correctly, it can drive major results.
6 Big Reasons to Prioritize Mobile-Friendly Web Design
Sure, lots of people are using mobile platforms to access the web, but does that mean you need to focus on mobile, as well? Yes, it does. Here’s why:
1. People Use Smartphones to Show (and Donate)
Today, millennials spend about $2,000 online annually. While they love to shop, they also like to donate online. According to The Balance, mobile giving has increased 80% since 2013, and a massive 18% of donors say they have given to an NPO on their mobile devices.
The only potential downside to this is that these customers won’t be able to give on your website if it’s not mobile-friendly. With this in mind, arrange your site to be friendly for mobile platforms and earn the donations you deserve.
2. Your Website Is Not Too Small
Lots of NPOs assume that their mobile user base is too small to justify mobile-friendly approaches. This is never true.
Even if your mobile base is just a tiny fragment of your total donor base, it’s essential to cater to them just like you would any other customer. Instead of selling yourself short by assuming no mobile update will make your donations more common, prioritize your mobile customers and check out what happens to your donation numbers.
3. Bad Mobile Sites Cost Nonprofits Potential Donations
Most customers will not recommend a business or NPO with a website that offers a poor user experience. With this in mind, it’s clear that even a mediocre experience has the potential to drive your mobile users away and prevent them from recommending your site to other would-be donors.
4. Many Customers Rely on Mobile
While it may seem like everyone has a desktop or laptop that they’ll use to access the website, this isn’t true for everyone. In fact, a fair amount of your customers only access the web on their mobile phones. If you’re not offering a mobile site for these customers, you’re selling their experience short and making it more difficult for them to interact positively with your site.
5. Google Prioritizes Mobile-Friendly Wesbites at the Top of Search
This is arguably THE MOST important takeway. Think about how many people go to Google each day to search for an organization like yours. If your website is not mobile-friendly, Google will not display your website at the top of search results.
Did you know that barely any of Google’s users clicks on results past the third option?
Think how few of Google searchers make it to the bottom of the first page of results, or even to the second page of results…
This means less new potential volunteers, donors, supporters, and advocates getting to your site and learning about your NPO.
6. Mobile Customers Want to Spend Money
According to Google, 50% of customers who conduct local searches on their smartphones visit a local business within 24 hours. When you compare this to desktop searches, which lead 36% of people to visit a store in the same timeframe, it’s clear exactly how lucrative mobile searches can be, and how much effort you should invest in prioritizing them.
Quick Mobile To-Do’s for Your Nonprofit Organization
So, mobile should mean everything to your nonprofit, right? But what does that mean? Here are some fast tips:
- DO simplify your website. Cut the fat, streamline your forms, make the experience simple for your users. A contact form is great, making your visitors fill out 20 fields isn’t.
- DO plan your site layout. Mobile pages load slower than traditional pages. With this in mind, keep your site layout intelligent and keep your users in mind. If it’s too complicated for them to dive in, they won’t.
- DO keep your branding consistent. If your branding isn’t consistent on your mobile site, your visitors are going to get confused. With this in mind, keep your NPOs language, approaches, and colors the same across both your platforms.
- DO utilize white space. Keeping plenty of whitespace present on your site makes it easy to read and navigate.
Focusing on Mobile-Friendly Web Design in 2018 and Beyond
Mobile is a huge thing, and it’s only going to get bigger this year. WIth this in mind, focus on making your site mobile-friendly to provide an outstanding experience for your visitors.
Need some help to help you develop your mobile-friendly website design? Contact the team at Creative Science today!
