Top 8 Considerations for Mobile-Friendly Websites

Mobile-friendly websites are essential for doing business online. Yet many sites still can’t seem to function on a smartphone or tablet.

What gives?

In today’s mobile-first world, it doesn’t make sense to lose customers who spend their time on these devices simply because a website isn’t designed for smaller screens.

If you have a customer who wants to place an order over the phone rather than in your store, do you tell the customer you don’t take phone orders? Of course not.

Businesses should think about websites in the same way: give customers the tools they need to get them to take the action you want them to take, in the way they want to do it.

To offer users the best experience, here are 8 key considerations when developing a mobile-friendly website:

1. Get up to Speed

Page load speed (how fast the content on your page loads) is one of the most important considerations for mobile-friendly websites. Studies have shown that pages with longer load times have higher bounce rates, lower average time on page, and fewer conversions. Google also uses page speed to rank results on mobile search.

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2. Think Small, Design Big

When designing a website for mobile users, it’s important to keep in mind the size of the screen. The average size of a mobile screen is only four inches, giving you much less room to display content than on a desktop. Text size also needs to be larger, so users can view and interact with content without having to zoom in.

3. Make Common Tasks Easily Accessible

Users are frustrated when they can’t find what they need right away on mobile websites. Make it easier by putting the front and center of the most popular actions.

4. Give Special Offers and Downloads the Sidelight, Not the Spotlight

Instead of crowding screen real estate with pop-ups and interstitials, let users know about secondary actions in a less intrusive manner. It’s more effective to place a small banner with info about sales, free shipping, or app downloads at the top or bottom.

5. Design for Touch

Mobile-friendly websites depend on a touch-first design, where users can complete actions with their fingers rather than a mouse or keyboard. Large, organized, and easy-to-spot buttons are a key consideration when you don’t want visitors to abandon the site out of confusion or frustration.

6. Keep Menus Simple

Too many choices on a menu become overwhelming for mobile users. Scale back menu options while maintaining usability, and your customers will quickly find what they need to (hopefully) complete the conversion.

7. Empower Users to Share

Whether it’s a social media button or an easy way to send a link, users love when mobile sites make it easy to share content with their friends and family. Plus, these buttons and links also help users pick up where they left off, whether that’s researching a product or returning to their cart.

8. Make It Easy to Get Home

When mobile users want to get back to the home page, they expect to be able to use the logo in the upper left corner of the screen. Be sure you make this possible to eliminate the possibility of annoying users.