Getting Ahead with Mobile Optimization – Reade Milner

We are currently living through the rise of the smartphone. It is the current wave in the internet revolution. If you aren’t optimizing for a great mobile experience, be prepared to lose more and more viewers each year, as the rate at which people are using their phones for internet usage increases.

Here’s how you can start to improve your mobile experience.

 

If someone in front of you has their smartphone within reach, ask them to use it to open your website. Once it opens, ask them to start making their way through the different pages and start asking them the following questions:

• Does it take over 3 seconds for the pages to load?
• Does it take some time for you to see the key selling points?
• Are you having a hard time reading the content?
• Are you having a hard time navigating the website?
• Is it difficult to take action (making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter)?
• Do you feel the urge to leave the website before finding what you need?

If most of the answers are a “yes”, then you need to give mobile optimization some serious thought.

Here are some statistics:

• 30% of mobile users will abandon your website in the middle of a purchase if they find it slow or difficult to complete.
• 57% of mobile users will also abandon your website in an instant if your pages take more than 3 seconds to load. How relevant are these numbers for your business?
• Considering the fact that 2014 started with 58% of American adults owning a smartphone and 42% owning a tablet, it only shows that a huge percentage of your market is probably interacting with your brand using their mobile device.

Importance of Mobile Optimization

Mobile optimization may just be the answer to the challenges you have been facing as far as brand and social media marketing is concerned. Having a website that’s fully optimized for mobile users gives you the following benefits:

• Faster Loading Speeds. If there’s one thing that is emphasized all the more with mobile users, it is the importance of time. Those who visit your site through their smartphones and tablets are doing so because they are on the go most of the time, making time an even more important aspect for them. The faster your website loads, the more satisfied your mobile users are with your site.

• Increase in Average Time on Your Website. The better your website performs, the longer users are enticed to stay on your pages and see what else you have to offer. Giving them the satisfaction of easily navigation through page after page and finding everything that they need quickly makes them enjoy their experience all the more, increasing the odds of them taking action, like buying a product or subscribing to your content.

• Higher Sales. Having a website that is fully optimized for mobile users means that the entire sales process becomes faster and more efficient as well. If users find your website to be efficiently made, there is a big chance that they would also believe that your products and services are just as effective. This prompts them not only to make a purchase, but to pledge their commitment to the brand as a whole.

• More Traffic and Followers. A mobile-friendly website also leads your users to your social media pages, making it easier to build a following over Facebook, Twitter, and other similar sites. There is also a big chance that satisfied users will become an ambassador for the brand, promoting your name on their different networks to lead others to your pages.

With the huge advantage that mobile optimization brings, it is easier to jump over the marketing hurdles that you experience and get ahead of the competition.