I bet you have heard over the last 12 months that ‘If you want your website to reach people all day every day’, you must do all these things..
Well my advice is to start with the basics—a mobile friendly site. Although it seems pretty obvious, a study done by google “found that 96% of consumers have encountered sites that weren’t designed with mobile in mind. It also found that when it happens, it can be bad for business—48% reported feeling frustrated and annoyed”.
With today’s technology, a mobile-friendly website is not just a nice or pretty feature – they are by-default a necessity for doing business in a very competitive mobile world. Lots of customers will leave a mobile site due to a bad user experience.
Given that more orders and sales than ever before are occurring from mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets, these lost visitors could of translated to real sales lost – all because your website is not mobile-friendly!
OK, so what is a Mobile friendly website?
– It is a lighter version of your main website a several page site that loads fast, is easy to navigate and more importantly optimised for a mobile experience.
My Must have features for a Mobile website
- 3-5 pages only
For the basis for what pages to have ask yourself this question.Q: If you were out on the road or in front of the TV and you went to a site what would you be looking for?
A: Trading hours? Contact information with directions? News Articles? Product and Services information? As you can see by asking that simple question will give you insight that you can use, after all you are somebody’s customer and have your own expectations that can help build your mobile website presence.OK so based on your answer you would then define what you required on those pages. Such as simple, clean and fresh navigation, with a great use of space. Not image heavy as mobile data can be slow and expensive.You want to make it easy for your visitor to navigate on the phone or tablet to the correct page. - Consistent Branding
Although you can find mobile-friendly templates in a wide variety of styles and colors, this isn’t the best time to unleash your inner artist!In most cases, it’s a much better idea to copy the visual branding elements used on your main website in your new mobile environment. Doing this will create a more consistent experience for previous customers and build trust between customers who are new to your brand. - No Popups
I don’t know about you, but I cannot stand popup windows or images on a normal website let alone on my mobile browser Although they can be useful if done correctly on traditional websites in terms of capturing new subscribers and driving opt-ins, they’re an absolute headache in a mobile environment.As you’re creating your mobile site, make sure all popups are turned off and disabled. Even if after reading this you decide not to take advantage of all the benefits mobile websites have to offer, at least turn off popups on your main site (or if you must have them on your main site use a tool that deploys them on traditional browsers only) in order to avoid annoying your mobile visitors. - Avoid using Flash
All the smart devices in Apple’s range do not support Flash so make sure you do not use this in your mobile website otherwise you will be loosing at least 60% of your visitors who are Apple owners. - Have Clear Content
Remember to prioritise your layout and content so your customers get what they need quickly.- Titles punchy and to the point
- Slogans catchy and relevant
- Mission Statements short and sweet
- Short Descriptive Phrases so it displays all in the one line
- Action Buttons these need to be sized with enough space in between them so they don’t get in the way of other navigation on touch devices
- Scroll Menus keep your content in lists it makes it an easier task to find the page your after
- Bullet Points instead of paragraphs
- Main Page Link
Make sure you have an option for the visitor usually residing in the footer of the page a link to your traditional website if they prefer to have the full blown site at their finger tips. - SubscribeTo capitalise on your mobile friendly visitors make sure you have an opt-in section where they can subscribe to your newsletter or VIP list.
Takeaway Tip: Test your site. Then test again on many different models of smart devices. Use your friends and family, get their feedback and make sure its not broken before rolling it out to the masses.