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Searches performed on mobile devices have been overtaking those from desktops for a few years now, but some businesses still haven’t optimized their websites for smartphones.

Does your enterprise fall into this camp? If so, a site that just doesn’t work on mobiles could chase visitors away to competitors and cost you customers.

So, what can you to do optimize your site for mobile devices?

#1. Keep your Load Times Brief

Load times are a key part of your visitors’ browsing experience. Pages overloaded with images, videos and text will take longer to display on smartphones.

Compress images to keep them at a more manageable size, and reduce the number of videos or GIFs that display on your mobile site.

Bounce rates for pages loading in one to three seconds is 32 percent. This jumps by 90 percent for one to five seconds, so take load times seriously.

#2. Consider Button and Link Placement Carefully

Browsing on mobile devices allows for less precision than on a computer. You don’t have your mouse or a cursor: you have to tap with your finger.

That means your buttons and links have to be placed carefully. Keep them large and easy to spot. Don’t cluster them together either, as visitors could keep clicking on the wrong ones by accident. This is crucial when adding CTAs.

#3. Streamline Content

Mobile browsing is best when it’s fast and intuitive.

Keep the amount of content displayed on your mobile site to a minimum. Don’t bombard visitors with endless blocks of text. This reduces the amount of scrolling required and cultivates a more streamlined browsing experience..

Provide prospective and existing customers with all the information they need, but in a digestible way. Keep it punchy and direct.

The faster visitors can find the answers they’re looking for, the more satisfied they’re likely to be.

#4. Embrace White Space

Lots of white space is good for your mobile website. It ensures space around buttons and links, for extra accuracy when taking actions. Even better, it makes images and videos stand out when scrolling.

Keeping your mobile site streamlined and simple is vital, but preventing it looking barren can be a delicate balancing act. Reducing unnecessary content and clutter contributes to faster load times too, which has its own benefits (as we discussed earlier).

Nett Solutions’ Orange County digital marketing experts can optimize your mobile site to give customers a smoother, better browsing experience. How? Just get in touch to find out!

Google’s mobile-first indexing has been a long time coming, but is now underway.

Websites which offer users a stronger mobile-browsing experience will be more likely to secure higher spots in SERPs. Every business’s website has to be optimized for high-performance on smartphones and tablets, but how?

Here are 7 ways to get started.

Boost Load Page Speeds

We all know the frustration of staring at our phone, waiting for a page to load. Research shows 53 percent of searchers will leave a mobile site with load times above three seconds.

Mobile devices tend to have slower load times than desktops, so make sure you focus on getting yours as low as possible. Reduce the size of all images, cut unnecessary content, and consider using AMP instead.

Text Must be Readable as Standard

All text on your mobile site has to be easy to read straight away. Users shouldn’t have to zoom in to make sense of your content, nor should they have to turn their device to landscape mode to fit it all on the screen.

Convenience is key. Any hassle will only frustrate users when all they want is to read what you have to say.

Check Your Images’ Mobile Compatibility

Are your images failing to load on the mobile site? Do you expect prospects to wait 30 seconds to actually see a picture?

Using outdated or incompatible files will make a huge impact on your users’ ability to enjoy your website. The simplest way to check this is to access your site from a smartphone, and take note of those elements that don’t work as they should. Address them as soon as possible to benefit from Google’s mobile-first indexing.

Make Sure Your Site is User-Friendly

Interacting with desktop sites and mobile sites is very different. In the former, you have a mouse for precise clicking, which means buttons and links can be smaller.

In the latter, though, you have to make interactive elements big enough for fingers to touch. Sites with buttons and links that are too small can end up directing users to the wrong pages, making accidental purchases, and more.

Test your mobile site’s interactivity regularly.

Streamline Your Ads

Trying to scroll along a mobile website that bombards you with pop-up ads or automatic videos can be unbearable. Yes, you need pop-ups to generate leads and revenue, but try to keep them to a minimum.

Too many will only slow your load times and chase users away.

Focus on User Experience

User experience is critical. Your prospects should be able to navigate your site, jump from one page to another, make purchases, access information, and communicate with your business with ease.

Browse your mobile site with your users in mind. Can you see the different pages available? Is it simple to interact with?

If not, make some changes!

Swap Flash for HTML5

Avoid using Flash video on your mobile site, as it might not work on most mobile devices. HTML5 is the must-have today, to ensure smooth performance and widespread compatibility.

If you have Flash videos on your site, you could be risking your ranking in Google’s mobile-first indexing.

Want help getting your mobile site the best it can be? Nett Solutions is an Orange County digital marketing agency with years of experience helping businesses just like yours achieve their goals!

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