Prevent these mistakes on your mobile website

Friday, November 20, 2015

Ever since Google decided to penalize websites that aren't optimized for mobile devices, most companies that are active on the web have taken measures to stay up-to-date.

Here is a list of mistakes you need to prevent to make sure you have a successful mobile website:

Under-estimate the importance of mobile!!

The number of mobile users keeps going up and they use more and more their smartphones to search the web. As a matter of fact, 60% of queries made on Google come from a mobile device. (Source) This trend isn't going away (we've included more links that confirm this at the bottom of this article).

Not having a website that's optimized for mobile and tablets

This is of course linked with our first element, you need to view your website on tablets. It's just common sense! Your website needs to be responsive. Your consumers and most people who browse the web need to be able to navigate on your website either from their phones or tablets otherwise Google will punish you in his search results.

Use the exact same website for mobile, tablets and desktops

This is a little touchy. You can obviously save money by using the same version of your website on all devices. The thing is, without necessarily starting from scratch, we highly recommend making changes on your website to take into account these devices to make sure when someone uses them, that they don't have any problems and they can navigate seamlessly.

Missing obvious call-to-action buttons

When you're on a mobile device, you need to be able to take action easily. Screen size is a problem, so if you have anything that's important and you would like your users to take action on, make sure it's visible and easily accessible.

Long forms

Instead of using long forms, try using links to social networks to import most of your users data. It'll allow them to fill out the form automatically and save some precious time. Anything that saves time is welcome! 

Offer too much content

Whether it's for your mobile or desktop version, don't put too much stuff on your website. It used to be that you need to see everything at first glance, but that time is long gone! You're much better off thinking about UX and presenting only the most important stuff first.

Your pages take too long to download

Test your pages before going online. Ask experts to make recommendations on how to optimize your images and content so that it's easily and quickly accessible, especially on mobile devices.

Your site doesn't pass Google's test

Some websites that didn't initially pass Google's test have since made changes, so if your site isn't ok, it's time to update it!

To show you the importance of optimizing your navigation for mobile devices (if you still aren't convinced), here are some statistics:

• According to the latest indicator of e-commerce in Quebec, purchases coming from mobile devices have gone from 8% in 2012-2013 to 21% of all transactions done in 2014-2015. The most popular categories:  fashion (31%), electronics (23%), music, movies and video games (17%), books and magazines (17%), decor (14%), trips and transportation (10%). (Source)
• In Canada, mobile e-commerce is increasing twice as fast as the general increase in e-commerce.
  (Source)
• 33 % of buyers use a smartphone to shop (source)