There’s no getting away from it. We’re obsessed with our mobile phones. They seem to be stuck to our hands. From using them at home, work, in restaurants and cafes, on public transport, on the loo, and walking with eyes fixed to the screen while miraculously avoiding people and obstacles, the mobile device is officially an extension to our lives.
So it’s no surprise that making the mobile (and tablet) experience the best it can be is vital to all businesses.
Mobile optimisation is no longer just a luxury – it's a necessity. A lot of web traffic comes from mobile devices, and making sure your website is user-friendly and performs well is crucial for both marketing success and SEO rankings.
Mobile user experience
If you’re getting started with SEO and scratching you head wondering what you need to do to make your website shine in a world full of ‘mombies’, Here are 10 tips to help you optimise your website for a better mobile experience:
5. Navigation
8. Testing
9. Local search
1. Responsive design
There’s nothing worse than visiting a website on your mobile and seeing disjointed content that’s trying to fit onto your small screen. That’s why when you’re designing your website you have to take a mobile-first approach.
A responsive website responds seamlessly to different screen sizes and orientations. This ensures it performs well on most mobile devices, giving your audience a great user experience that won’t make them bounce.
2. Mobile-friendly content
A responsive website uses the content from your desktop version and displays it in a format that fits around your screen orientation. If however, you’re hosting a separate mobile site then your mobile SEO content should be tailored for mobile users.
With mobile-friendly content creation it’s important to keep it concise, scannable, and easy to read. Use shorter paragraphs, bullet points, and subheadings to break up content and improve readability.
3. Fast load speed
As demanding consumers we expect web pages to load instantly. And why not? When we walk into a shop or restaurant we expect to be seen quickly. The same applies to web content. If pages are taking an age to load we’re simply going to leave the website.
To avoid this digital embarrassment, consider:
Optimising your website for speed by minimising HTTP requests
Making the most from browser caching
Using content delivery networks (CDNs) to serve content from servers closer to your users
4. Image and video optimisation
Not optimising a massive image that’s featured on your homepage is an easy thing to overlook. And if this bad practice is followed through to other images throughout your website then page load speed becomes an issue. Additionally, if you have a lot of video content that isn’t optimised, this would slow your site down even more.
The way around this is to compress images and videos to reduce file sizes and improve loading times. Try using responsive images and look into lazy loading techniques so that your media content doesn't scupper load speed.
5. Navigation
If your audience can’t easily navigate your website they’ll get frustrated and leave. Simplifying your menus and making them easily accessible improves the user journey and helps your audience go to the sections of your website they’re interested in. Try techniques like a hamburger menu or a sticky navigation bar to conserve space and deliver a slick browsing experience.
6. Touch screen interaction
Snazzy animations like hover effects to buttons look great on desktop versions of websites, but on mobile they’re not so great. You either don’t have them at all, or ’turn them off’ for mobile devices.
Also, ensure your call-to-actions are large enough and adequately spaced for easy tapping and swiping.
7. Mobile form optimisation
There’s a high likelihood that at some point we’re going to have to complete a website form.
If you do have a form (or forms) make sure they’re optimised for mobile. Make the input fields mobile friendly by minimising the number of required fields and by using easy input methods. Elements like dropdown menus, date pickers and auto-fill can speed up the form filling process on mobile, making it a less cumbersome experience.
8. Testing
Testing is vital when you’re developing your website. Test it across various mobile devices, operating systems, and browsers. Doing this enables you to see compatibility and functionality. There are loads of useful tools out there like Google's Lighthouse and BrowserStack.
9. Local search
Use local SEO strategies to optimise your website for mobile users searching for nearby businesses or services.
Polishing up your Google My Business listing, using location-based keywords, and ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly will go a long way to improving its visibility in local search results.
10. Monitor performance
It’s important to know how your efforts are panning out. Tracking key performance metrics like mobile traffic, bounce rates, and conversion rates will give you a good indication of how well you’re doing.
Use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to gather insights and make data-driven decisions to improve your website's mobile performance.
Making sure your website is optimised for mobile is essential. Responsiveness, load speed, navigation, forms, testing and more will give your audience a mobile-friendly user experience wherever they're inclined to use their phones.
Explore our plans, which are crafted to make your SEO and content optimisation journey as smooth as possible.