An App Isn't Enough to Make Your Business Mobile Friendly

Is your business optimized to serve today's mobile consumer? If you offer buyers and sellers a property search app, but your website is difficult to use on mobile devices, you're missing out on a lot of potential leads.

There are several reasons for this. First, consumers are not using property apps exclusively. Many, especially those early in the search process, are still Googling "Mytown homes for sale." If their search brings them to your IDX site, how long will you think they'll stay before moving on to another site that's easier to use on their device? A few seconds, at best.

That's if they're able to find your site at all. In April, Google updated their search algorithm to favor sites that are mobile friendly. Termed "Mobilegeddon" by some, the update relegates sites that don't display correctly on mobile devices to the bottom of search results.

What Makes a Website Mobile Friendly?

So what is it that makes a site work well on mobile. In days past, some websites would actually offer two different versions of their content--one designed for specifically for mobile and a "full" site that works on desktop or laptop computers.

Today, "responsive" design has solved the need to build two sites. A website designed responsively can identify the size of the screen it's being viewed on and scale accordingly. This means that all devices and screen sizes--computer, tablet, and phone--can view the same version of a website.

Want to see if a website is responsive? Just shrink the size of your browser to test it. If it scales as you shrink the window, the site is responsive. If the site stays the same size so that you'll need to use the horizontal scrollbar to view the whole page, the site is not responsive.

Real Estate and Responsive Design

The best way to ensure that your site is mobile friendly is to use a vendor that uses responsive design. If the company offers sites that aren't--regardless of any other slick features--run the other way. Your site won't rank well in Google and won't be easy to use for a significant number of consumers.

WolfNet is among the top providers of responsive IDX websites today. Their recently released Responsive IDX platform is viewable on all devices and offers a wealth of features to keep consumers engaged on your site. Consumers can save properties and search criteria, and the platform also offers a list of similar properties on every listing to keep web searchers clicking through your site. You can learn more about WolfNet's Responsive IDX platform in our product review.

To see a full list of available IDX websites, visit our Product Directory.