It’s possible that you might still need convincing that smartphones are important to your company’s marketing. It’s more likely that you might need to convince someone else – for example, someone who has to agree the budget to make your company’s website work on a smartphone. In either case, take a look at the slides from a presentation called “Mobile is eating the world, autumn 2013 edition” by Benedict Evans. The numbers are amazing.
It’s simply no longer good enough to have a website which just appears as a miniaturised version on smartphones. We all use the devices, and we all know how irritating that is. There are a few ways to tackle the problem, but they basically boil down to whether or not you’re prepared to redesign your site. If you are, or if you were anyway, then look into a “responsive design”. With this, your site collapses down into a single column on smartphones. It’s not hard for a web designer to master – I taught myself how to do it this year as a challenge, and I’m no hardcore coder.
If you can’t redesign your website right now, see if you can add a “mobile version” which detects the device your visitor is using, and offers up a different format from the same data. This can be tricky to pull off with some sites, but is worth investigating. But it’s something which needs to be done, so you may as well get it done now rather than later. Take a look at your website’s mobile device visit data in Google Analytics and see.