The creation of mobile-friendly websites has now become a must. More and more people are now browsing the internet on their phones, rather than their computers. With more than half of all web traffic coming from mobile devices, it’s now necessary to offer an optimized version of your website for viewing on mobile devices. According to Mobile1st: “At its simplest, mobile friendly design means your website’s information – images, texts, videos, links – is easily and readily accessible across all different platforms and, most particularly, on the much smaller screen of smartphones and tablets.”
The following list will provide you with ten features to create a successful mobile-first website design.
Customer journey from mobile browsing
When our Calgary website design company is designing a mobile-friendly website, it’s essential to consider the customer journey from mobile browsing to conversion. What are they expecting to find? Does the content messaging and imagery match, from social content to website design?
It’s also important to have a functional search bar. It’s likely that someone looking for what you have may not know what they’re specifically looking for, so it’s important that your search functions properly on mobile devices. There are many different ways of designing a successful mobile-first website layout for your business, but the following ten points will provide you with a good start in creating an efficient design that will lead customers from browsing to conversion.
Optimize your written and visual content for mobile
It is crucial to optimize your written content for mobile-first design. Otherwise, there is a chance that your message might be misinterpreted or misunderstood. Just as important is the need to optimize your visuals for mobile-first design. Both of these factors can make or break your mobile-friendly website design.
Visuals and text on a mobile-first website should be designed in an easy-to-read and clean format with ample white space to make it easier for viewers on mobile devices to read and understand the information being presented. The text should be spaced out enough so that users can easily scroll through it without having to zoom in and out of the page too much. Images should also be included on the site but only as necessary, as they can take up a lot of bandwidth and may load slowly on slower connection speeds.
A successful mobile-first website design will incorporate these elements into their content, which will offer a more user-friendly experience for those browsing from their phones or tablets.
Make call to actions easy to find
Your call to action (CTA) is the most important feature of your website, as it’s what will ultimately cause your customer to take action. A successful CTA will draw your customers in and compel them to take the next step in the buying process.
What makes a good CTA? It needs to be easy to find and noticeable on the page. It also needs to offer something that’s hard for people to refuse. Your company logo is usually a great place for CTAs, but any area of your website with high visibility can work as well.
If you’re unsure what types of CTAs work best for your business, consider using different variations on popular offers or discounts. You could also use offers like free shipping or a buy one get one free deal. The most important thing with CTAs is that they do not feel like ads that can turn off some customers.
Use scrolling and gestures
Gestures, like swiping, are now a standard input method on mobile devices. As a result, your website design should also include these gestures to make it easier for users to navigate.
Additionally, scrolling is needed to view the full page. Different types of content, like videos or slideshows, can be better displayed with scrolling.
Maximize viewable screen space
One of the features you will need for a successful design is maximizing viewable screen space. One way to do this is by eliminating all unnecessary navigational components. For example, your logo and navigation bar should not be taking up too much space. You can also use a responsive layout that would adjust to the size of the user’s device in order to provide optimal viewing capabilities.
Another way to maximize your screen space is by using vertical scrolling bars in place of horizontal ones. This would allow for more information and content on your website without having to clutter it with many links or buttons.
Don’t skip navigation links on mobile
No matter how many navigation links you include on your desktop version of your site, don’t skip them on the mobile-friendly version. If you want to maintain a strong navigation structure, make sure that there are at least three to four navigation links on the homepage.
If you want to grow your business and be successful in today’s competitive market, great search engine optimization (SEO) is a must. The challenge? Many small businesses don’t have the time, skills or expertise necessary to handle everything that comes with a solid SEO strategy. From keyword research to content evaluation, from page optimization to internal linking, it’s easy for companies to end up with a generic web presence that doesn’t inspire engagement or drive conversions. In this piece, we’ll tackle key outsourcing operations, including how it can benefit your business – and why SEO can’t be entirely outsourced.
Balance use of popups, banners and other invasive content
This is a key difference between a mobile-first website and a desktop site. Mobile content must be designed to fit on the small screen of a phone, not on a large computer monitor. The use of popups, banners and other intrusive content should be minimized.
Maximize mobile loading speeds
A successful mobile-friendly website is one that doesn’t slow down while loading on a phone. This is especially important for visitors who access your site while on the go.
To maximize page loading speed, you can remove images and videos from your site or add them to a page with larger file sizes. You should also restrict plugins and tracking scripts to only those necessary for your site’s functionality.
You can also use caching mechanisms like Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to identify which specific elements on your website are slowing down your pages and then take steps to optimize them accordingly.
Minimize scroll length using accordions, tabs and horizontal scroll
It is important to avoid making your users scroll down long pages on their mobile devices. When designing a mobile-first website, you should use accordions and tabs to limit the amount of scrolling needed to reach information. This will also allow your users to better navigate through your website by clicking on links that appear on the top or bottom of the page.
Hiding excessive content at the bottom of a page can provide more space for an easier browsing experience. A horizontal scroll bar allows users to easily see where they are in comparison to where they need to be. This also eliminates the need for additional taps, as it’s easy for them to find their place and continue scrolling vertically.
Use optimized visual formats like webp and svg
If you’re not familiar with these formats, they are scalable image formats that are compressed without compromising the quality of the image. WebP is a lossless format, which makes it ideal for use on websites, where the images are typically scaled down to fit more on a screen. SVG is an XML-based format that offers many advantages over traditional graphics formats. SVG files are easy to edit, have crisp text, and can also be animated or interactive.