How To Use Mobile Optimization To Increase Conversions
By Tri | Jun 16, 2021 (5 min read)
Design | Ecommerce | SEO | Web Development
In 2021, over 50% of all web traffic is from mobile devices such as phones and tablets. The rise of mobile-based internet use has been increasing ever since the iPhone was introduced in 2007.
Today, people love using their phones to read the news, connect with friends and family, and shop online. But, the reality is that in 2021, most people have made mobile internet browsing a part of their everyday lives. In fact, there’s a high chance you’re reading this article on your phone or tablet right now!
This growing trend means there is a definite need for business owners to prioritize mobile search optimization now more than ever. If your website does not make it easier for visitors to browse, share, and buy on a mobile device, then you are potentially losing half your customer base!
How do you optimize your website for mobile devices? This article will discuss how to create the perfect mobile SEO strategy to improve your customer’s user experience and increase your revenue.
What Is Mobile Website Optimization?
Mobile optimization, also referred to as mobile website optimization, is the process of redesigning a website to improve a mobile user’s experience and increase the volume of conversions.
In the past, optimizing a website for mobile devices was as simple as implementing responsive web design. Users would still view the desktop version of a website, but most site elements would be changed to match the mobile device’s screen size.
However, with Google switching to mobile-first indexing in 2019, mobile responsiveness is now just a part of the puzzle.
Mobile-first indexing essentially means that Google’s web crawlers will view the mobile version of a website to determine indexing and ranking qualities.
This new practice is the primary reason that you must focus on SEO for mobile. With some tweaks and improvements, you can make your website ranking benefit from the Google mobile-first indexing update. However, to ensure you are giving people the best mobile user experience, you have to create easy mobile website navigation that complies with Google mobile-first indexing best practices.
Some common characteristics of a mobile-optimized website can include:
- Responsive design (site changes to match size and layout of a device)
- Clean, unclutter design
- Hamburger menus for easier navigation
- Large buttons for easy action
- No sidebars or headers crowding the page
- Limited or easily closeable pop-ups
- Skimmable text (using headings, subheadings, and bullet points)
- Compressed image sizes for faster load times
Mobile SEO always considers the user’s experience of navigating the website.
It should be easy for visitors to make a purchase, sign up for your service or take any other call-to-action (CTA) you have on your site.
Why Is Mobile Website Optimization Important?
Besides the mobile-first indexing fromGoogle, there are many other benefits to consider as well.
First, mobile optimization will significantly improve the mobile user experience, potentially boosting conversions and bringing you a profitable return on investment (ROI).
With more than half of online shoppers using their smartphones to research and buy, it’s crucial to give potential customers the best chance to experience your offerings.
Recently, Google announced a new algorithm update they are calling Page Experience in May 2021. The update will take into account the user’s experience when ranking sites for search results. According to Google, user experience includes the website’s mobile friendliness and site speed.
As Google mentions in their developer notes: “In cases where there are many pages that may be similar in relevance, page experience can be much more important for visibility in Search.”
How Does Mobile Optimization Increase Conversions?
For the past few years, many business owners have been focused on a website’s conversion rate optimization. CRO is the practice of optimizing your website landing pages based on website visitor behavior. This practice helps to improve conversions on those specific pages. As a result, CRO strategy today has become a big part of how businesses increase the volume of sales and revenue in their business.
There are many other tweaks you can make to a website to improve the volume of conversions.
For example, with an ecommerce website, offering a one-step checkout is an example of making purchases as fast and easy as possible. Likewise, Amazon’s website is an excellent example of all the minor tweaks that businesses can make to improve their online purchase options.
Convincing a potential customer to make a purchase is difficult enough. For this reason, you need to remove any difficulties that you might encounter when doing so.
Focusing on mobile conversion optimization is one of the best ways to ensure higher sales on your website.
4 Steps to Improve Mobile Optimization
While the technical aspects of improving your website’s mobile optimization might not be your specialty, there are some simple steps you can take to improve the look and feel of your website significantly.
To get you started with mobile optimization for your website, here are four key steps to take:
Run a Mobile Website Audit
Begin your mobile site audit by using Google’s free speed testing tool, Test My Site. It’s a great resource you can use to understand how your site performs against Google mobile-first indexing. You can even get a full report emailed to you for in-depth analysis, which can cover:
• Mobile Friendliness
• Mobile Speed Score
• Desktop Speed
This report will give you a clearer idea of the effectiveness of your mobile-first indexing. From here, you can begin to implement Google’s suggestions one at a time to improve.
Remove Excess Clutter
All mobile websites have minimal space compared to the desktop versions. For this reason, you cannot show the same layout on both versions.
The sidebar on a website – a navigation column to the left or right of a website – often gets squashed down on a mobile version of the site, making it difficult for the user to see it.
Removing the sidebar in place of a hamburger menu will eliminate the visual clutter on your mobile website and focus on the site’s main content.
If your website goal is to drive conversion, there should not be any clear distractions in your site’s mobile navigation. This means removing large pictures, excess text, pop-ups, and anything that makes the site information hard to understand on a small screen.
When your site aligns with all the requirements of mobile-first indexing, you should be on the right track to better conversions.
Improve Site Speed
Site speed is a vital part of mobile search engine optimization and technical SEO.
In fact, a 2018 Google study showed that over half of all mobile users would leave a website if it takes more than three seconds to load.
Three seconds might not sound like a lot of time, yet that slowdown creates a massive drop in website traffic and conversions.
Since 2018, the Google algorithm includes loading speed in ranking mobile sites in the SERP. Google recommends switching mobile sites to Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), enabling a simpler version of your HTML code for faster load times.
A few more simple strategies that can improve site speed include:
• Enabling image compression (no images over 200KB)
• Creating a simple site layout
• Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) such as Cloudflare
Lead Visitors to Action
While it seems like filling your site with information about your company would be attractive to your visitors, the reality is that most people don’t care.
Instead, you should focus on your site’s primary goal: to move your visitors to action.
When you have a clear call-to-action (CTA) on your landing pages and homepage, it will immediately lead your visitors towards conversion.
There are different types of CTAs that you can add to your site, depending on what you want them to do.
For example, an ecommerce site can use buttons like ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Add To Cart’ on every product page. For websites that want to gather customer contact data, a simple form or email submission can be an effective way to keep in contact with your prospects.
Remember that your website visitors rarely visit to hang out on your page. Ideally, they want to take action after reading your offer, and it’s up to you to lead them to act.
Mobile Browsing is The Future of The Web
Like it or not, all of us are attached to our phones all day, every day. And that reality means that our websites must adapt and evolve alongside consumer behavior.
Taking the time to optimize your website for mobile devices is one of the easiest ways to grow engagement, website traffic, and revenue.
Think of building a mobile-optimized version of your site as meeting your customer’s needs. The better you serve them, the more likely they are to be loyal to your business and brand.