Most of the web work we are doing for dive operators this year involves the same objective: making the website function properly on a phone, not merely look attractive on one.
Dive centre guests are travellers. They use their phones in airports, on boats and in guesthouses with one bar of signal and a fan that does not turn. The sites they reach were mostly designed for a large office screen, so guests pinch and zoom on a four-inch screen until they give up. Last June, Google stated that responsive design is its recommended configuration for smartphone sites. Many owners are not yet aware of this.
We therefore rebuild these sites as responsive WordPress themes. The layout is the simpler part of the work. The booking form is where we continue to learn the most.
Why is a responsive website better than a separate mobile site?
Many businesses here still operate two sites: the main site and an "m." version with half the content, a different menu and no way to reach the page a visitor was sent to. When someone shares a link to your Open Water course and a friend opens it on a phone, the friend lands on the mobile homepage instead and must search for the page. Most will not.
Responsive design, the approach described by Ethan Marcotte in 2010, resolves this problem: one site, one address per page and one set of content, with a layout that adapts to the screen. For a small business without a web team, it also means maintaining one site instead of two, which is often the deciding argument for the owners we speak with.
WordPress makes this approach practical. Quality responsive themes are becoming standard, and a small business can have a site that works on phones without paying for a custom app. Such apps are currently being offered to many small businesses in Bali at considerable cost. A dive centre does not need an app, since customers will not install one to book a single fun dive.
Why is the booking form the most important page?
A dive centre's homepage serves for browsing. The enquiry or booking form is where revenue is generated, and on a phone it is almost always the weakest page on the site.
Common problems include tiny fields, a dropdown list of two hundred countries, a date picker that opens a desktop calendar the size of a stamp, and a CAPTCHA with distorted letters that cannot be read on a small screen, particularly in sunlight. Each of these is a point where a person standing on a boat abandons the form and books with a competitor next door.
How do you make a form work with one thumb?
Our standard is that a form must be fully usable with one thumb while standing. In practice, this means:
- Fewer fields: name, email, dates, course or trip, number of people. Other details can be gathered in your reply.
- Large fields and buttons that are easy to tap with a finger.
- The appropriate keyboard for each field: an email field that displays the @ key, a phone field that displays numbers. HTML5 input types provide this, and most current phones support them.
- No CAPTCHA puzzles. Less intrusive methods can prevent spam.
- A single clear button at the bottom, labelled with what happens next. "Send my enquiry" is clearer than "Submit".
None of these measures is complex, yet they are missing from nearly every dive website we review.
Should you show prices on your website?
We recommend showing prices, or at least a range. This recommendation meets more resistance than any other, and owners often decide against it.
Many dive centres prefer not to publish prices online. Competitors would see them, prices vary with the season, and owners prefer to receive an email and provide a personal quote. These concerns are understandable. In our assessment, however, withholding prices works against most small businesses.
On a phone, a person who cannot find the price within a few seconds does not send an email to ask. They return to the search results and choose a business that displays its prices. The business never learns that it lost the customer, which is the most significant cost of this practice.
If exact prices cannot be published, a range is effective: "Open Water courses from…" followed by a figure. Customers want to confirm that the offer fits their budget before investing time. Withholding the price does not convey a premium image; it adds effort for the customer.
How should you test the booking path?
Designers tend to test on their own phones, often the latest iPhone on reliable office Wi-Fi. The guest, by contrast, is using an older Android phone on an unstable mobile connection somewhere between Sanur and the Gili Islands.
We recommend testing as the guest does. Use an inexpensive phone, turn off Wi-Fi and try to book a course starting from a Google search rather than from the homepage, since that is how people arrive. Count the taps, note the points of frustration and address those first.
Repeat the test after every change to the site, because plugins update and forms can stop working without warning. The most problematic form is one that appears to function normally but does not send.
What trends should businesses anticipate?
We expect Google to become considerably stricter about mobile performance over the next few years. It already states its preferences, and it may eventually treat a poor mobile experience as a reason to rank another site higher. If that occurs, the sites being rebuilt now will benefit from having adapted early. Google's developer notes on building sites for mobile are technical, but the core message is already clear: provide the same content to everyone and do not hide important information on the small screen.
Regardless of Google's next steps, revenue depends on the same element. An attractive homepage with a difficult form loses bookings every week. A simple site with a form that works with one thumb generates them. This is the first element we examine on any of the small business websites we are asked to review. Identifying most of the problems takes about ten minutes; correcting them takes somewhat longer.