Recently, I’ve been surprised to find that some of our customers are still uncertain about the value of optimizing their website for mobile.

It’s been a trend for a few years now. But let me throw down two statistics to explain why it’s increasingly important.

  • Today, 15 to 30% of all searches are done on mobile devices.
  • By the end of 2011, 50% of Americans will have a smart phone.

In other words, a ton of people are already trying to search for you via mobile. Those numbers are only going to increase. And before your website can function effectively as a mobile website, it must be made compatible with mobile devices.

Atomic can accomplish this task for you, a lot more quickly than you might think. Ready to optimize your site for mobile? Here are a few points to keep in mind.

  • Simplify. Make the layout simple. Complex graphics and unconventional navigation are lost on mobile users. What are the few critical pieces of information your customers need? Include that. Forget about everything else.
  • Resize. Make sure navigation links and buttons are large and easy to find. Your thumb isn’t as accurate as your mouse.
  • Prioritize. What content do you want your visitors to read? Make that the first thing they read. Users are much less likely to browse on mobile devices. They want to find the information they’re looking for immediately.
  • Technify. You’re creating a mobile site. So maximize the capabilities of mobile devices with features like “Click to Call.” Click-to-call lets a user press your phone number and instantly place a call —rather than having to exit their browser function, call up the phone function, and enter your number manually.
  • Streamline. Whether your goal is to increase phone calls or sales, make this task as simple as possible. If you want a phone call, break the process into three quick steps: provide a brief description of services or why a customer should call, offer an incentive for calling, then show the phone number (using click-to-call). If you want a sale? Provide a brief description of the product or service, let your user click to the product page(s), and then click again to checkout.

If you want to see the difference between an optimized and non-optimized site, compare Home Depot vs. Menards, or Smashburger vs. Applebees. The difference in usability is huge.

So ask yourself: Which way do you want your site to look?