Audience on the go? Why you need to check your site’s mobile-friendliness.

July 20th 2011 | By Sarah McInerney

By 2013, it is estimated there will be around 1.7 billion mobile web users, and some of them will be viewing your website, on a screen that measures just a few centimetres by a few centimetres. How do you think it will look?

If you use the internet on your phone, what’s your initial reaction when you find a site you can’t view properly? Or it’s not downloading pronto? You give up, right?

It’s seriously frustrating when a company doesn’t take the time to make their site mobile friendly. How come they plough so much effort into making sure the right impression is made to visitors landing on their site from a standard browser, yet fail to consider the growing numbers who access the net whilst they have time to spare away from work, or, quite simply, don’t have access to a PC?

Have you checked your Analytics lately? Have a look to see how many visitors you’re getting from mobile browsers, like Safari. And check out the bounce rate. What’s happening?

If visitors are landing on your site, but failing to spend any time there, you’ve got a problem. You are, in a nutshell, losing enquiries or sales.

So what can be done to increase mobile-friendliness? Try these for size:

Mobile plugins

WordPress is great for plugins, such as WP Touch, that transform a site for mobile users. And there are options for alternative platforms. Offer choice though, as some visitors may want to view the full site rather than the mobile version. Talk to your web developer about mobile plugin integration.

Flash and JavaScript: Leave them out, or find another way

Most mobile devices either won’t display Flash or Java applications, or they’ll involve several steps which users are likely to tire of. So leave it out altogether, or find a mobile friendly alternative.

Clear Direction

Offer quick links, shortcuts and a clear navigation, and you’ll instantly make it easier for visitors to find their way round your site, however they’re viewing it.

Contained Content

It’s always been important to keep website content succinct, but on a mobile device, this importance is enhanced because you have that much less space in which to grab attention and call to action. Make sure content is easy to digest, focus on compelling headlines, and don’t crowd paragraphs.

Why Mobile-Friendly your site?

Because if you don’t, and your competitors do, you will lose business to them. It’s quite simple really. The team here at our SEO agency in London has been making sure our clients’ sites are mobile friendly for a while now by factoring it into the design process. If your audience is mobile, make sure your site is too. Talk to us about design that works across all browsers, and all devices.