Are you among the 42 percent of small and medium businesses in construction who don’t have a mobile-friendly website, who don’t think it’s relevant to your business, or who just aren’t sure? That number comes from the 2013 SMB Internet Marketing Survey of 20,000 small and medium businesses in the U.S. building and construction sector. Yet the latest Walker Sands Mobile Traffic Report shows that mobile devices accounted for 31.2 percent of website traffic. It’s safe to assume the construction industry contributed to this trend: a Sage Software survey in March 2013 of construction industry small and medium-sized businesses showed that 73 percent of companies supply mobile devices to employees. Construction is a big user of mobile technology, but could do a better job of supporting mobile users from a website perspective.

1) It improves lead generation. Mobile-friendly improves both search engine optimization and usability. According to the SMB Internet Marketing Survey, 62 percent considered online marketing more effective than offline at bringing new leads and customers, with search engine optimization ranking highest as the most effective online or offline channel. Google recently modified its search algorithms to penalize sites that are not mobile-friendly.

2) It increases productivity for employees and partners. In an increasingly digitized world, colleagues, partners, and customers expect faster responses – which means being able to access information, not just email, at all times. In the Sage Software survey, 85 percent of decision makers believed mobile technology has a positive effect on productivity, citing reduced travel time and cost to and from the jobsite, ability to make better decisions on-site, reduced errors, and improved bidding via remote access to materials pricing.

3) It’s what users now expect. Fifty-two percent of users in a 2012 Google survey said that a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with a company. Whether you are seeking new customers, dealing with partners, or hiring new staff, your digital presence impacts how people perceive your business practices and organizational efficiency.

SO HOW MUCH MOBILE-FRIENDLY DO YOU NEED?
Depending on your budget and how much mobile traffic you get, you may not have to invest in a fully mobile-friendly site right away. Below are three approaches, from lowest to highest cost.

This is the least amount of work but it could be adequate for your short-term needs. The goal is to make sure your website doesn’t mess up on a small screen. This means:

Code tweaks to adjust font size and viewport size. Smartphones allow users to rotate to view in a different orientation or scale a page larger or smaller, so use the viewport meta tag to manage screen size.

Reduce, reduce, reduce. This is essential. 4G may deliver speeds close to that of LAN, but 4G data plans can be expensive and service quality varies according to coverage. Think about jobsites outside metropolitan areas. Assume slow cellular bandwidth and reduce the amount of data users have to download.

• Smaller images: Shrink those file sizes. You don’t need big, high-resolution images everywhere.
• Fewer embedded images: Every image generates an HTTP request. Include only the minimum number of images you need to maintain your brand and page appeal.
• No flash animations: Unless you’re also a content publisher who plans to get Adobe’s Flash server for streaming video, kill those Flash animations. iPad and iPhone don’t play Flash anyway.
• Nothing that plays with user control. Pop-up windows have to go. Same for those rotating banner images. They slow down the user from getting to what they really need.

Reducing is a good idea anyway. The amount of time users are willing to wait for a web page before clicking away has plummeted. Google says this is now down to three seconds. So after you’ve streamlined your pages, use Pagespeed to see how you’re doing.

This is the most popular middle ground, making use of a browser’s ability to check for screen size, orientation, and more. It involves coding your website to target specific resolutions and device sizes so that it "adapts" as the browser determines screen specifications. This option requires a lot of design and planning because you need to make sure your navigation and content will work for both desktop and small screens.

Responsive design uses CSS that supports mobile (CSS3, CSS Mobile), and flexible, proportion-based grids and images. This allows page elements to resize rather than display in absolute pixel units. The grid design means that as screen sizes shrink, the elements stack on top of each other for easier viewing and navigation.

This is a good middle ground because you end up with one website that supports both desktop and mobile devices, which means your maintenance costs are for one website, not two. True, it’s a more complicated website and will cost more to build than a non-mobile-friendly one, but it’s still less expensive than the next option.

A dedicated website offers a completely different, fully compatible experience for the mobile user. It will require its own domain. You’ll need to design for performance, navigation, and minimal use of input keys. You’ll need to make sure you provide a well-placed link to it in from your desktop website, so that mobile users to come upon your standard site can click to the mobile site.

Some critical issues are:

Design and information architecture. The site structure must be simple and obvious so the user sees immediately what actions come next. Even big brands sometimes opt to use a plain navigation link menu for the home page.

Functionality. The experts say, think minimalist. Keep web pages small and use a clean layout for your website.

Content. Content displays differently than on a full-size screen. Make sure you test everything, and on every mobile platform you support: formatting, images, line breaks, fonts, spacing.

User Experience. This means a combination of design, information architecture and functionality. Define your goals based on audience requirements. A mobile site may not need to replicate everything from your standard site. You may want to begin small, and prioritize on the pages most frequently accessed by mobile users. Use Google Analytics to dig into this data and you may discover that pricing, materials specifications, support, or contact information are what mobile users come to find. If so, then your design, navigation, and content needs have just gotten a lot easier.

As a new and connected generation enters the industry, the expectation for mobile-friendly websites will only increase. If your website is mobile-friendly, you have an edge over competitor sites that don’t make it easy for mobile users to find and read information. Hopefully this quick explanation of the three options available provides guidance for your mobile website strategy.