Mobile Still Not a Part of Your Web Strategy? You’re Almost Out of Time…

For all you heel-draggers who still consider mobile-friendliness to be an optional add-on for a website, it’s time to pick up the pace and bring your site up to speed or risk losing business.

Google’s Matt Cutts recently told listeners at a search marketing expo that it would not surprise him if this were the year when the number of searches performed via mobile devices would be greater than the number of searches done at desktops. Mobile-friendliness is a topic we’ve broached, time and time again, with our clients. Knowing this day would come, we knew a web strategy without mobile compatibility would fail to compete, going forward. To be honest, I’m a little surprised that we’re already at that point. It’s time to fish or cut bait.

Re-working your online strategy so that your site is mobile-friendly requires you to get inside the head of your user, appealing to how they think and act when searching from a smart phone or tablet. Design your strategy with these points in mind:

A Good Online Strategy for Mobile is to Keep it Simple

When it comes to designing a mobile-friendly version of your site, pages with simple and straightforward layouts will always be more effective than those that are heavy on content, pictures and so on. Remember, mobile allows users to surf the web while they’re on-the-go, so on average, the amount of time they will want to spend on a site is less than a desktop user. This being the case, your web strategy should include the following:

• Keep images to a minimum
• Use bullet points and short paragraphs that users can quickly scan for the information they need
•  Use different colours or bold to draw attention to important text or areas of your mobile site
• Reduce the number of text links on the page
• Don’t use long forms; no user is going to fill out field after field of information while they’re on the bus or at a coffee shop
• Mobile sites that load slowly only frustrate users and lead to higher bounce rates, as do sites where you can’t see from one side of the page to the other without having to scroll
• Focus on including the content you want and need the user to see, aesthetics are secondary

Keywords and Your Mobile Strategy

Just like the amount of time a mobile user will spend perusing your site is shorter than a desktop user, mobile users also tend to use shorter keyword terms in their searches. This means that as you design the online strategy for your mobile site, include keyword terms carefully researched and selected for their mobile search relevance. Also, don’t forget that a growing number of mobile users are turning to voice search instead of typing in their queries. The keyword terms used in voice search tend to be formulated as questions, so take this into account when researching the terms you’ll include in your web strategy.

If you’re starting to realize that the time to bring your online presence up to speed with a mobile-friendly site is now, before you start to lose business to your competitors, you’re right. While using the above points as a framework for your web strategy will get you off to a good start, you may want to consider speaking with some experts who can help you design, build and test the mobile site that will put you in the best possible position to capitalise on the growing trend that is mobile search.

For more on this or any other web strategy query, please call 1300 885 557 or email us here.