Mobile usage is ever-increasing since the introduction of smartphones in 2007. In fact, 91% of Australians have a smartphone, and mobiles have overtaken laptops as the preferred method of making an online purchase. This has resulted in a variety of developments in how businesses interact with their audience online. One of the biggest adaptations has been the movement towards mobile web pages, allowing customers to have easier access to businesses on the go.
Google states that mobile-friendly sites show up higher in search results. Therefore, it is now more important than ever for businesses to make sure their website is optimised for mobile.
Optimising Mobile Web Pages
1. Efficient Web Design
Visual excellence is often what companies strive to achieve in a website, and while the exceptional design shouldn’t be negated, mobile design should look to focus on user experience, allowing for an easy to navigate website.
This is where mobile responsiveness and mobile first design come into play. Mobile responsiveness is the more traditional setup of mobile web pages, where desktop pages simply changed size to adapt to a smaller mobile screen. While in the past this has been an effective method of showcasing a web page, today, businesses are moving towards mobile first design. This design is a simplified version of a desktop website and involves adjusting menus, layout and even content to make it all more user friendly and practical for mobile.
Tips to Achieve Mobile First Design:
- Minimise and simplify menus – Simple menus are industry best practice, as they allow for users to easily move around a website without taking up space on the mobile screen.
- Keep it simple – As mentioned previously, mobile websites are generally simplified versions of their desktop counterpart. When looking at design, be sure to focus on the key areas or CTAs of your page and adjust your design to highlight these accordingly.
- Follow a design hierarchy – Focus your design elements around your CTAs. For example, if you want users to click a certain button but it is placed in a hidden position, then it is more than likely consumers will miss it. Keep your CTAs front and centre.
2. Maximise Your Site Speed
Website speed is especially important as it has been linked to positive user experience and overall better SEO rankings. One way Google has looked to combat the issue of slow loading web pages is with the launch of AMPs in 2016. As you would suspect, AMPs were created with the idea of speed and readability being the forefront of development. In fact, it has even been speculated by some that Google has looked to include AMPs as a ranking factor in mobile first indexes, with AMPs typically shown higher than their canonical counterparts.
While AMPs are effective options to boost site speed, they aren’t always appropriate to use and there are a number of other areas that can be explored to minimise site load time. Some of these include reducing the amount of backend coding and plug-ins on the site (meaning overall less to load), using a reliable website hosting service and reducing the size of large file size media on your page, such as images and videos.
3. Content is Key
As you’re probably aware, content plays a crucial role in mobile webpage performance. On a mobile page, companies must be far conscious about their choice of content. This is not only in relation to text, but also imagery on the page to allow for a perfect balance between visual appeal and engaging/relevant content for a user.
Quick Tips:
- Avoid large chunks of text – Due to small screens on mobiles large chunks of text are extremely off-putting for users and will more than likely cause them to bounce(leave your website). Therefore, keep content short and to the point.
- Define your intention – Look at what you are trying to achieve on your page (providing key information, encouraging a purchase, promoting a product). Be sure to highlight the main points of each page and present it in an easy to digest manner.
- Prioritise content – Prioritising of content can have a variety of effects. Firstly, it means that individual pages only show the most important content to users making it more likely to be relevant with a lower bounce rate. Secondly, this prioritising of content can lead to other content being negated which can have other effects such as increasing web page speed, reducing page wastage and further optimising web page performance.
4. Mobile Testing
As with any aspect of digital, it is important to consistently monitor/test the performance of your mobile pages, not only in terms of speed and usability but also to make sure the page works appropriately across different devices and browsers.
Want to find out more about how your business can optimise your web pages for mobile? Contact the team at Redline Digital today.