Don’t lose your audience; optimize for mobile
When was the last time you tried to read your website or blog on a smartphone? Do you have any idea what kind of experience your site visitors have when viewing your site on a tablet? If you don’t, now is the time to find out – and to do something about it.
Consider these mobile statistics:
- People log more hours viewing content on mobile devices (51 percent) than on laptop or desktop computers (42 percent)
- Eighty percent of Internet users own a smartphone, and that number is expected to increase
- More than 33 percent of B2B buyers read six or more pieces of digital and mobile content before making a purchase
- Mobile commerce accounts for 30 percent of all commerce in the United States
(Sources: Smart Insights, Artemia, Internet Retailer)
To make the most of your mobile audience, follow these guidelines:
- Think scannable content. Do not underestimate the value of white space on a mobile platform. The more white space, and the fewer the words, the easier a piece is to read online – especially on a small screen. Condense your message into fewer words that can easily be scanned by a reader who is swiping and scrolling through the page. According to Forbes, 79 percent of people merely scan online content for key words and key ideas, while a small minority read every word.
- Fix pop-up bugs. Pop-up forms can be a great way to add calls-to-action to your website, but these forms can sometimes stop a mobile site in its tracks. If a mobile user can’t access your site because a pop-up can’t be closed, you are losing a valuable opportunity.
- Consider plug-ins and format. That beautiful video or ad you invested so much time in creating might be completely invisible to a mobile user if their device isn’t compatible with the required plug-in (e.g. Flash). At best, your potential customer if mildly frustrated. At worst, you lose his or her trust because of that frustration. Create and upload video and visual content in supported formats and be sure to test the content on a variety of devices.
- Use video and visuals, but adapt them. Too many images can make a piece difficult to read on a mobile device, and too-large images might lose your audience entirely. Same goes for long videos. Keep visual content short and easy-to-digest for mobile platforms. For some ideas, visit this blog.
- Make it share-worthy and shareable. Even shortened, condensed content should be quality content. Deliver quality information to your readers that they will want to share, and then make it easy to share from mobile with social media buttons and calls-to-action.
For more information on creating mobile-optimized websites and online content, contact Campfire Digital today.