With more and more users browsing the web from mobile devices, it is absolutely essential that business owners make their sites more mobile friendly. If your website can only be accessed from a computer, you’re alienating a huge amount of people – as much as 25% of web traffic, according to some estimates. This number will only keep growing as smart phones spread and grow in popularity. Here’s what you can do to optimize your website for mobile use.
Make sure information is easy to scan
Mobile users are browsing on the go, which means they want their information in easy to digest bites. They don’t want to read a long dissertation on a topic; they’re looking for information quickly. This means that your web design should be built around bullet points and lists, delivering information quickly and easily to the user.
Make it easy to purchase
If you have an online business, make sure mobile users can easily purchase the items on the page. Studies suggest that the majority of mobile purchases are impulse buys, which means more money is spent per purchase than those shopping on desktops. To take advantage of this, you have to make sure the user doesn’t need to follow a complicated path to get to the shopping cart. Make it easy to buy, and you’ll see increased revenue.
Make sure your website looks great on mobile platforms, as well as desktop platforms
Many mobile users will find your site while browsing from their phones and return later from a desktop to investigate further. Take the time to ensure your site looks fantastic from both platforms; no matter where a user accesses your page from, it should hold the same aesthetic appeal and ease of use. Make it easy for mobile users to return to where they were before.
Hire a professional for optimization
Even using plugins won’t necessarily provide the right feel for a mobile device. Content needs to automatically adjust for visibility on smaller screens; users don’t want to have to squint or zoom in order to read what’s on the page. If they do, they’re more likely to leave. You can keep your bounce rate low by hiring a professional to make sure every inch of your page works on a mobile device as it should. Their experience will be different, so catering to the mobile market requires making a few changes to the infrastructure of your site – these changes are best done by someone who knows how to handle code.
Make it load quickly
Mobile devices sometimes have difficulty loading pages, particularly those with a lot of javascript or flash on them. Ensuring the page loads quickly will keep mobile readers interested, rather than turning them away.
While web design for the mobile market is a relatively new concept, it’s one that will become even more important in the coming years as the number of people accessing the web from mobile devices increases. Take the time to improve your site now.
