Is your site ready for the mobile era we live in? Mobile devices have advanced so much since they first became available to the public more than three decades ago.
Today, smartphones and tablets are used for more than just communication. With their computing power and connection to the internet, they have also become tools for education, entertainment, social networking, and even business.
In fact, their value in business is so great that as a business owner, one of the best ways to prime your brand for success is to build a mobile-friendly website.
Mobile-friendliness and Your Company’s Success
Your prospective customers are likely connected to the internet (along with more than half of the world’s population) and most of them are probably browsing online through their mobile device.
A website that represents your brand is great. But if it’s not optimized for mobile devices, you could be missing out on a lot of business.
Users expect a positive experience when they go to your site. If your site is mobile-friendly, users can view and engage with your content comfortably and easily even through the smaller screens of their smartphones and tablets.
This experience is extremely important to your bottom line. Google says about 61 percent of visitors who experience difficulty accessing a mobile site leave — never to return. And 40% go to competitor websites instead.
Mobile-friendliness affects your search visibility as well. Google crawls the mobile version of your site before it does the desktop version, so optimizing for mobile means users are more likely to find your site on the first page of search results.
Creating a Website Mobile Users Trust and Enjoy
Optimizing your website for mobile isn’t a one-step process. Here are strategies you can use for your site:
-
Adopt a responsive design
A responsive design means your website adjusts to different screen sizes and resolutions, making its content readable whether it’s viewed from a desktop computer, a smartphone, or a tablet.
You may need to hire a professional developer to do this for you, but certain CMS platforms make the process a bit easier.
-
Allow users to find information easily
Many mobile users access the internet on the go, so they need the information they want to be readily available to them. When designing your site or writing your content, ask yourself what visitors would want to know and give it to them.
Adding an FAQ that answers users’ most common questions would also help.
-
Disable autocorrect for forms
If your site has forms for users to fill in, such as fields for their name or address, autocorrect would keep changing their responses to similar common words. This would slow down the process and possibly annoy users.
-
Increase the size of your buttons
Large fingers can make it hard to work on small touchscreens. Make the buttons on your site larger and reasonably spaced apart from each other. Small buttons are annoying for users and will make your site less convenient to navigate.
-
Increase your font size
Even with a responsive design, your content may remain hard to read if you use small font sizes that are optimized for bigger screens.
-
Allow users to switch to desktop view
Some users prefer the desktop version over the mobile version of your site. Help them browse conveniently by letting them change to and from either version with a single button.
-
Enhance loading speed
As previously stated, many mobile users want information fast. If your website loads slowly, you could lose conversions and revenue. Avoid content that uses Flash, not just because it doesn’t work in some browsers, but also because it slows down your site’s loading time.
It’s also best to stick to standard font styles for your content as specialized designs can weigh your site’s loading time down.
-
Test your mobile site regularly
Make sure your mobile site works perfectly by pulling it up on your own smartphone or tablet. Put yourself in your site visitors’ shoes and take note of any element that needs improvement.
Dos and Don’ts in Mobile-friendly Design
Right off the bat, developing your site for mobile-friendliness won’t be a simple matter, especially if you already have a website. Although you may not have to redo everything from scratch, you will have to put careful thought into all the elements you will incorporate in your website design moving forward.
Here are mobile-friendly design dos and don’ts to keep in mind:
Mobile Design Dos
- Do keep user experience a priority
Remember that at the end of the day, mobile-friendliness is all about user experience. With more people browsing using their smartphones or tablets, your mobile site will need to be designed with these visitors’ convenience in mind.
User experience is crucial because it affects how people view your brand.
- Do keep your website light
In creating a website that’s light and optimized for speed, it’s essential to make every element matter. Avoid unnecessary fonts, images, videos, animations, and other design elements that do not contribute to the experience offered by your site or the way it represents your brand.
- Do design for mobile first
It’s easier to start designing a fully responsive mobile site and then scale up to a desktop-optimized website than to cram all the content in your conventional site into a mobile website.
- Do keep your content focused
Unnecessary blocks of text can distract users from their purpose of viewing your site and many of them will be annoyed by this. Streamline your content and keep your copy simple and straightforward. If possible, use engaging animations, images, and videos instead of text.
Mobile Design Don’ts
- Don’t do it just because
Sure, mobile use is on the rise, but don’t shift to a mobile-responsive website just to join the trend. The change in people’s web-browsing habits reflects a need, a demand, and an opportunity that you can fill by developing the right mobile app or website.
- Don’t strip down your content
You won’t be able to cram all your desktop website’s content into your mobile site, but this shouldn’t stop you from providing a complete experience to your visitors.
Opt for more compatible design elements, but make sure no content is ever hidden from visitors when they access your site’s mobile version.
- Don’t clutter your website
Speed isn’t just about loading time, it’s also about how you organize the elements of your website. Keep navigation straightforward and remove any element that will stop visitors from reaching their goals.
- Don’t forget your branding
Your mobile site will not be an exact replica of its desktop version. But it must contain all the elements that represent your brand. You can retain your brand’s colors, typography, copy, logos, images, and others that customers have come to associate with your business.
Mobile Era Conclusion
The tides of business are changing and they are shifting in favor of mobile. As a business owner, embracing these changes and adopting mobile-friendly strategies would benefit your brand and gear it up for success.
Bonus Reading
Learn more about mobile-friendliness from the following:
- Why User Experience (UX) Design will Be Everything in 2019
- WordPress vs. DIY Website Builders: Which One Should You Use?
- Marketer’s Guide to the Top Social Media Trends in 2019
- Why Desktop vs Smartphone Matters for Your Marketing – Here’s Why #156
- 6 Trends that Will Shape Mobile Marketing in 2019
- Why Responsive Design is Important and Google Approved
After getting a deeper understanding of what makes a good mobile-friendly website, navigate the sites. How intuitive was the site design? What do you think of the sites’ overall UX? What about the loading time? How could they have been better?
Let us know what your thoughts are in the comments below.
Latest posts by Stacey Louis (see all)
- Mobile Era: What You Can Do To Make Your Store EXTRA Mobile Friendly - April 22, 2019
Interesting post. I think people really screw themselves over by neglecting mobile friendliness, especially loading speed.
Usually its too many ridiculous ads, or just heavy graphics and scripts that are taking a while to be loaded by the browser. Minifying these scripts and CSS can usually help, as well as optimising your database tables and post revisions, and optimising graphics.
this is exactly what i am looking for. such a useful information. this is very informative. thanks for sharing this information with us.
Thank you for sharing these tips. In an era where mobile apps are so popular, it is a huge risk to ignore mobile responsiveness when running an online store. As you have clearly stated, the user experience must always be a priority.
Thanks once again for sharing.
Never thought of it that way. Also, are smartphones really CMS compatible already? That’s nice! Thanks for the info!
Tyler Vera would love you to read ..Content Ideas You Can Use to Start a Blog
Hi Stacey,
First off, thank you for sharing this timely and relevant post! You have broken down the most important things that everyone should remember when building a mobile-friendly site. Since Google pays more priority on the mobile version of the websites rather than its desktop version (mobile-first indexing), it’s paramount that the mobile design, as well as its content and structure, should meet the needs of its users. Of course, in as much as the design looks appealing, content readability must also be considered. I couldn’t agree more with what you said here. Looking forward to reading more of your posts soon!
Mark Newton would love you to read ..How to Create a Custom WordPress Database Error Page
Hello,
These tips are good to know stuff, glad that i came across this article.
Thank you for sharing this amazing blog.
Mobile responsive, Fast loading, topic focused, desktop responsive too, all points mentioned here are worth it making mobile friendly business/ store. Hopefully will help me a lot making my store more mobile friendly. Keep up informing us and updating us.
Hi Stacey,
Yes, it is very good to select low weight themes for fast loading of the websites. I will keep a note of all other points shared here. They all are worth sharing with others too!
Keep up the good research.
These all are amazing tips.. thanks for sharing this blog
I Have seen stores not using the wallets and accepting card transactions. Specially in India Well I like your article the points you shared are unique and great. Thanks for sharing.
Write Us For Best Business Tips
Ayush would love you to read ..The Ultimate Guide to Starting a Jewellery Business
Good day,
Thanks a lot for useful tips. I have 4 sites for desktop PC and now thinking to adjust/ modify or create new one for mobile users. Information from your good article is really helpful.
Vlad Nikolskiy would love you to read ..Пасха
Hello Vlad,
While early on, many advised having a separate mobile site, that isn’t true any longer. Today, most feel you should build a site that works well on mobile and then use the same site for desktop.
That said, as someone who uses only desktops, I find it terribly annoying that so many sites are ok with ruining the desktop user experience to chase mobile users.
An obvious example of this is that I can no longer sign in from one page on many sites. Forcing desktop users to put their username in, then wait, then put their password, and wait again is very annoying and a waste of my time.
I’ve been told by developers that it IS possible to build sites that work well on both.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Trigger these Emotions to Fantastically Boost Your Sales
One of the reason why most of the Apps fail is because they try to make it look fancy and give everything they have to offer on the tiny screen. Instead of that, they should focus on prioritizing things and display accordingly.
You have put all these thoughts nicely in the article.
I am running a online store in wordpress i have all site mobile friendly but Not AMP. Do you have any idea so that i can make my website AMP Optimized.
Hello Manoj,
I know the owner of one large site who did optimize some of it for AMP. She said it really didn’t help and in some cases had a negative effect. So you might want to do more research before deciding whether you want to bother with AMP or not — at least at this time.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Trigger these Emotions to Fantastically Boost Your Sales
I like the article and like you have said its very important to use a good theme I would suggest to buy a theme as there are sites which provide custom themes which loads fast. Well anyway thanks for sharing the article.
Ayush would love you to read ..The Ultimate Guide to Starting a Jewellery Business
Yup. Appreciated. This is the right stuff to show the quality work. The user interface is important to see what they are looking for. This is the best information to engage more users. Thanks for sharing with us the useful key points. Best ideas and top quality work.
You incorporated so many useful tips in your blog. Thanks for sharing this article.
Silvia Christia would love you to read ..Google Confirms their De-indexing issue is now Completely Resolved
As a UX designer, i really think that minimal is the way to go with any app design.
These are all amazing tips for making the site mobile friendly. I am trying to make my website optimized in mobile, I will definitely take this advice. Thanks for these amazing points.
Online market places such as Amazon, eBay, etc gives priority to online sellers who use the white background of the product so that it can remove the distracting objects easily. And background removal services helps to remove the background accurately.