Is Your Website Mobile Responsive?

Close to 2 billion people around the world own smartphones today. Many of them prefer to view websites on their mobile devices, which makes it critically important to optimize your chiropractic website for mobile users. Google recommends that webmasters build mobile responsiveness into the main website, rather than creating a separate mobile site independent of the regular site.

Why Mobile? Cost-Benefit Analysis

Many small businesses and professionals continue to be skeptical about the value of a mobile-responsive website, and whether it is worth their time, effort and money to turn their existing website mobile compatible. To make an objective cost-benefit analysis, it is important to understand the profile of your average site visitor and whether they may be viewing your website on their mobile devices.

People in the age group 20 to 50 typically prefer to review websites on-the-go via their mobile devices, or even within the comfort of their home or office. If your chiropractic website does not download efficiently on their mobile screen, or they find it difficult to navigate pages, view images or read through the text, it may prompt them to leave the site and look for alternate sites on the web with similar information.

Furthermore, search-engine optimization (SEO) value is better for sites that are mobile friendly. Search-engine algorithms increasingly attach value to such websites and tend to rank them higher in their search results. Therefore, overall online exposure and visibility would improve for your website for targeted, localized audience with a mobile-optimized site.

How to Achieve Effective Mobile Optimization

Consider the following tips to ensure your mobile-compatible website is appropriate optimized.

Mobile Optimization Is a Continual Process: Building a website that incorporates mobile responsiveness is not a one-off activity. Once your mobile-responsive website is up and running, you need to continually review the latest insights and improvisations provided by Google and other search engines to make the site more effective.

Google Analytics will also provide you with periodic data to analyze which elements of your mobile-responsive site are still weak and cause readers to leave the page or abandon the site abruptly. Changes must be applied appropriately to enhance the impact of your website as a continual process.

Focus on Efficient Mobile-Responsive Design: Your website design should include elements that are useful from the perspective of a mobile device user. Your choice of font types, sizes and colors should be such that it makes the viewing and navigation experience easier for mobile users. A search box may be included on each web page to allow the mobile user to retrieve the most relevant information quickly and efficiently.

Mobile users generally are more predisposed toward making a call directly from their mobiles or sharing information with others via social media networks. Therefore, the site may include a clear call to action prominently in the top area of the page, prompting more users to convert. A visible phone number with a click-to-call function should be included to make the calling experience easier.

Must-Haves for Your Mobile-Responsive Site

Take the following must-haves into account when building your mobile-responsive chiropractic site:

• Branding consistency: Visitors should feel familiar whether they visit your website via their PC, tablet or smartphone.
• Sharper images: Smaller screens require superior image quality for the sake of clarity and impact.
• Wrapped text and legibility: Text on a mobile screen of any size should be clear and readable.
• Easy scrolling and swiping: Dragging, pinching and zooming requirements on your site should be minimized for a smooth mobile viewing experience.
• Site download speed: Website speed and performance is more important for mobile sites because the viewer's data usage may be involved, and quick download is necessary when the user is on the go.

Over time, an efficiently optimized mobile-responsive website can lead to greater traffic of target audiences and improved reader loyalty while boosting the bottom line of your practice.

Editor's Note: The author thanks Vikas Vij, who assisted in the writing of this article.

Naren Arulrajah is president and CEO of Ekwa Marketing (www.ekwa.com), a complete Internet marketing company that focuses on SEO, social media, marketing education and the online reputations of chiropractors.