If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re losing out, plain and simple. Statistics show that currently more people spend time browsing on mobile devices than on desktops, and that’s only predicted to continue to grow.
Still, only 56 percent of small businesses have mobile-optimized sites, which means nearly half of all small businesses could be doing much better. So what does it really mean for a business website to be mobile-friendly or optimized for mobile and how do you do it? Here are some tips:
Simplify. Your mobile site doesn’t need to have everything on it, just the things most users will be searching. That means things like your physical location and an easy and straightforward way to make purchases. Make everything as streamlined and intuitive as possible. For example, cut down on the need for people to enter data on your site, by offering them checklists instead.
Make it consistent. Make sure the look and feel are similar to your full website and on the mobile version, as well as on all of your social media accounts. This is basic but vital, users have to be able to read the text on their phones almost as easily as they can on a computer. If they have to squint and zoom, they may just go elsewhere.
Speed up page speed. Even more frustrating than waiting for something to load on your desktop is waiting for it to load on your phone. To increase page speed, code should be minified (basically all unnecessary characters should be removed), browser caching should be leveraged and redirects reduced.
Avoid flash. Not everyone has the plug-ins to view flash images, and if they don’t, they won’t be able to see what you’re posting.
Pass on pop-ups. Pop-ups are positively frustrating on a mobile device.
Optimize local searchability. You want to make sure that people living in or visiting your area can find you. To do so, you need to optimize local SEO.
Make it easy to get to the full version of your site. Some people are creatures of habit or just like the full website better. Make sure they can easily switch from one to the other by including links to the full site on pages throughout the mobile version.
