When an investor or potential customer hears about a new business, the first thing he or she will do is visit that business’s website. First impressions matter, so for any tech startup trying to secure funding, it’s vital to represent the brand in a clean, unified way.
Regardless of how the user is accessing the website, whether from a desktop computer, a tablet or another mobile device. A growing percentage of users are using mobile devices to surf the Internet: users are increasingly using high-resolution iPads, Android tablets and smartphones to view the content businesses are publishing to the web.
Users are making purchases and viewing ads on these devices, as well. If a startup wants to monetize its user base and attract investors, it needs a snappy, responsive web design that looks good consistently, no matter what device users display its content on. To get the job done properly, it’s important to find the right team to develop a site responsively from the first day it hits the web. What’s the right way to do that? An agency specializing in interactive design.
What can an interactive agency do for an early stage startup? Web development isn’t something that can be thrown together in Dreamweaver or Pages anymore. Nor will it do to use simple HTML– at least not for sites that need to have more impact than a crumpled sheet of paper thrown underhand. The mobile web app is the glossy brochure of the present day: nothing will squelch an iPad user’s curiosity more quickly than a difficult-to-browse website which clearly has not been customized for mobile in any way.
Web-based mobile apps are the best way to drive up conversions and ensure that a site gets the traffic it needs to secure investor funding. Why mobile web apps? It takes long seconds and a healthy dose of consumer goodwill to get a dedicated app installed on a user’s machine, whether they’re using an Apple, Android, or Blackberry product. However, the right web development team can create mobile applications which cost-effectively and efficiently serve content to desktop and mobile users from the same site, without having to spend costly man-hours writing programs to be compatible with each of the broad variety of devices which will be used to view the content.
To fit in with the modern web, a startup’s site needs to be responsive– meaning its interface changes when it recognizes what kind of device it’s being viewed on. CSS, or Cascading Stylesheets, can preserve a website’s unique style so that it appears well-designed at any resolution. A good mobile site should be touch-based, with big enough buttons that users aren’t frustrated trying to hit tiny buttons and links. It should use gestures users are familiar with, like swipes and taps. It should use AJAX, a technology which prevents users from having to wait for pages to load. A website that uses AJAX gives an impression of solidity and power; these are the true ‘mobile apps’ that make a business appear professional– see the big players like Gmail, Facebook, or Amazon for great examples of AJAX at work.
A tech startup doesn’t need to have Google or Facebook level funding in order to look professional and alluring, though. A good interactive agency can affordably create a web app that will give a new business legitimacy to its users and a conversion rate that will bring investors running.
The iron is hot in the world of the mobile web. Entrepreneurs who strike now, with the right development team, can get their ideas off the ground and onto investors’ radars.
