It’s a new year and most guides and outfitters are revisiting their marketing efforts around this time. I’m hoping the season went well for all, but in reality, usually the same guys are busy all the time. But why?

Well I can tell you, that I’m still amazed how many non-mobile-friendly sites there are still out there today. Usually, it’s either an old, outdated design or maybe the guide or outfitter did the website him/herself.

Either way, let’s all agree that mobile-friendly website design is important. And with that being said, for guides and outfitters, in either hunting or fishing markets is really no different than any other industry.

So let’s take a peak at the stats…

Mobile-Friendly Outdoor Website Statistics

I pulled 3 random clients, in hunting guides and fishing guides, to show exactly what I’m talking about.

Website Design for Mobile

There are a few key variables that should be present in EVERY website created for the mobile web, period.

Speed Matters

People are impatient, and phones aren’t always connected to high-speed Internet, so speed is vital.  Not only that, but a slow website can hurt your rankings in search engines (equaling less traffic).  Google doesn’t like to serve up SLOW websites in their rankings.  We aim to create every mobile website with around a 1-2 second load time. 

Where’s the Darn Phone Button???

This is true for any mobile-friendly website design.  If one of the main goals is to get phone calls, why make the end-user work to find it?  A phone button or number should ALWAYS be present on a phone.  Your business is a simple click away.

Make Above the Fold Count

There’s a technical term to web design that’s used a lot nowadays, and that’s called Above the Fold. Above the Fold, to put it simple, Above the Fold is what’s displayed on your PC/tablet/phone when they load the page (WITHOUT any scrolling). Did you know, that MOST people DO NOT scroll the average website? With that being said, you need to make that real estate count. Make it engaging, have a call-to-action button or link, and make it easy to reach you. Simple.

The Back Button is NOT Your Friend

This really kind of ties into Above the Fold, but goes a bit further.  When people come to your website, and don’t find what they’re looking for, they will hit the BACK button.  And how often people hit the back button is tracked in Google Analytics as the Bounce Rate.  To put it simply, if your bounce rate is HIGH, that tells Google people aren’t interested in your website.  And high bounce rates mean, you guessed it, bad search engine results.  The key is to get users to take action such as clicking and scrolling around the site.

Now that you know what you know about mobile website design for outfitters, take a look at your website or even your competitors. Does it match all the criteria I mentioned? If not, your web designer was either lazy or just doesn’t know about these things. Either way, having a well-optimized website, designed for phones, will be the one that will catch most of the leads (no pun intended).

We design for guides and outfitters here weekly, and design with a strict set of rules. That allows Outfitter Logic to continuously put out quality work that generates constant leads. We can help MOST guides and outfitters around the world in their online marketing. And at the end of the day, your website should drive the most business for your operation. If not, it’s really hard to consistently fill a calendar year-round.

Tight Lines & Good Hunting