Designing and optimizing the website for mobile devices?

A correspondingly large number of websites designed as so-called one-pagers can now be found on the internet - especially from small businesses and personal service providers such as trainers, consultants and coaches. These pages are characterized by the fact that they usually consist of many images and little text and the central content is packed onto one page, the homepage of the website, from which you can then possibly access further information via a link.

One-pagers are annoying when searching for specific information

Another characteristic of these websites is: In the header of the homepage, i.e. on the start page, there is either no menu, which is not necessary because there are no corresponding subpages. And if there is one? Then, when you click on a menu item, the page only jumps to the corresponding place on the homepage.

Websites designed in this way may be "modern" and quite nice for people browsing the internet on their smartphones. But for visitors sitting in their office at their PC and wanting to find out about a consultant - be it a management or sales consultant, tax or legal advisor - and their services, for example, they are a pain. Because if there is no menu at the top of the website, they cannot click directly on the relevant pages if they want to find out about a consultant's seminars or biography, for example. Instead, they have to scroll through the endless text and images on the homepage until they finally find the information they are looking for. That's annoying! Especially as you can't quickly find the desired information again if you visit the website again for a day or two and/or want to show it to other people.

One-pagers can hardly be optimized for web searches

What's more, as one-pagers have no subpages, they can only be optimized suboptimally for one or two search terms - not for more terms or a broader range of terms, as this would require additional subpages. As a result, most one-pagers are difficult to find in online searches. This is why such websites can only really be recommended to motivational and success coaches and speakers, i.e. lecturers, whose core messages can be summarized in one or two sentences anyway and who, as self-absorbed G-celebrities (or Z-celebrities), prefer to communicate with their customers or fans via Twitter, Facebook & Co in the footsteps of Donald Trump & Co and prefer to send them selfies.

B2B consultants need a normal, informative website

All other consultants and other personal service providers who have something more to say and whose services consist of more than just one or two standard presentations and a "Powerday" should be warned against designing such a website. This applies in particular to consultants working in the B2B sector.

It is true that most Internet searches are now carried out on mobile devices. But who accounts for the majority of these searches? Private individuals sitting at home at the coffee table googling the weather, for example, or lying on the sofa and wanting to find out about the latest offers on eBay, or reading the latest rehashed sensational news from T-Online on the bus or checking where the nearest kebab stand is.

In the B2B sector, visitors from stationary devices dominate

If, on the other hand, you are looking for change consulting or sales coaching or a lean management seminar or project management training for work-related reasons, for example, you don't do this from your sofa in your free time, but at your PC in the office.

This is why we register the following with all consultants whose websites we optimize and manage for web search and who are at home in the B2B sector: 70 to 80 percent of organic visitors to their website - i.e. visitors who were actively searching for something online and are therefore potential new customers - still come to the website via desktop devices and not via mobile devices. This also applies to sites that are primarily optimized for mobile devices. In addition, the number of organic visitors is usually quite low for them, as at least the one-pagers among them can hardly be found on Google & Co. As a result, their "mobile website" is usually only visited by people with whom they are already in contact and to whom they have sent information in advance, for example via Facebook or Xing. Potential new customers, however, do not.

Visitors via stationary devices stay significantly longer

And if you look at how long visitors spend on the website, you'll see that visitors who come via desktop devices generally spend five to six times as long as visitors who come via mobile devices.

The reasons for this are: The "mobile" visitors are either (private) individuals who have landed on the site by mistake and are not at all interested in the services offered there, or it is too tedious for them to read what the consultant writes about change, project, lean or sales management on the display of their smartphone, which is barely the size of a pack of cigarettes. So they say goodbye again, ideally with the resolution: I'll take a closer look at this website when I get back to the office - which probably rarely happens.

Mobile visitors are hardly relevant for the business of B2B consultants

Therefore, the message to all consultants and other service providers such as architects and lawyers working in the B2B sector can only be this: It is crucial that people sitting in offices on desktop devices not only find your website quickly when searching the net, but also find the content they are looking for on it. On the other hand, you can tend to neglect cell phone users sitting on the sofa at home. Because they won't buy your product or service anyway - at least not in their free time.

To the author: Bernhard Kuntz is the owner of the PRofilBerater agency in Darmstadt, which supports education and consultancy providers with (online) marketing. He is the author of books including "Die Katze im Sack verkaufen", "Fette Beute für Trainer und Berater" and "Warum kennt den jeder?".