In the last few years, we have seen a change in how people consume content online. According to statistics, many are now using their mobile as the number one tool to get information and the percentage of mobile-only audiences is steadily outgrowing the percentage of the desktop-only audience. But not only that, many gaming sites have seen that most of their audiences are also playing games or betting on sports from their phones. It is therefore vital to have a mobile responsive website. In fact, we’re past the stage where “mobile-friendly” is enough. It’s time to think “mobile users first”.
Let’s dive into how you can make your website and your content, suitable with a mobile-first mindset.
Did you know that the majority of all digital content consumption happens on mobile devices?
Your site must be mobile responsive
Today most WordPress themes and other platforms are built to be responsive. This means they will adapt to any screen and show the exact same information, whether you are using a tablet, mobile phone, or laptop. But with older sites, this might not be the case and you will then need to update and optimize your content.
Start by thoroughly checking your site on your own mobile phone – test every page, fill out every form, place an order if you have a shop of any kind, write a test review – in other words: test everything on your site to make sure it works. Then ask someone from a younger generation to do the same, since they tend to be both more tech-savvy and more judgmental about what they consider to be a good or a bad site.
Make sure it’s speedy
Research from Google states that it can take up to 22 seconds to fully load a mobile landing page. This is a really long time, especially when today’s attention span doesn’t last more than merely 3 seconds.
Making sure that your mobile pages are speedy, and that loading time is quick is, therefore, a huge priority. There are some factors to look over to make sure users will stay on your pages and engage with your content rather than bouncing back to the search results. For example, you should make sure that your images load speedily by doing this:
- Use Compression tools: With compression, you can make your large files smaller without compromising appearance. Tools such as TinyPNG are ideal for ensuring this is done properly.
- Create Pre-Optimized Images: With tools like Canva, you can create pre-optimized images for emails, social media, websites, and more.
- Run your content (including images) through a preview process: With your mobile device, you can check and see if you have enough white space to keep content readable. Do the images have a clear purpose?
Make sure your content fits for a small screen
With the mobile screen being a lot smaller than your laptop, a paragraph of text that seems short on the desktop will become a large chunk of words on a mobile device. Therefore, you need to structure your content better to make sure it fits the smaller screen. The more optimized your structure is, the better it will read.
When it comes to text, here are some things to keep in mind:
- Keep paragraphs short (no more than five lines of text).
- Bullet points are a great way for users to get an overview
- Subheaders help the reader find information better
- Use an image after about every 300-400 words
- Use plenty of whitespaces
- Use a font size of at least 12 points
Use different content formats
The way people consume content on a mobile device is different from how they do so on a desktop. When using a laptop people tend to focus on content placed on the top-left section on a site. On a mobile device, on the other hand, the viewer’s gaze is somewhat distributed. On a mobile, there is no “most important” area to optimize first. All the content needs optimization.
Many mobile visitors will visit your site to read your content, but many also welcome other content formats. The most popular one is video. Or even an interactive tool like a clickable SlideShare or slideshow. By having these on your site you can make sure to engage your users and keep them on your page longer. And by keeping mobile users on your site longer, you are likely to get more leads and sales, too.
Here are some other content options to put on your pages:
- Images
- Video
- Slideshows
- Styling (italics, bold)
- Subheaders
- Summary
Conclusion
If you are working on making your site mobile-friendly, don’t just settle for a responsive site since this is not necessarily reader-friendly. With just a few simple tweaks to your writing and formatting, you can improve your content’s mobile readability dramatically while making your website more attractive for today’s modern mobile users. And since there’s more traffic from mobile devices than from desktops, it will be a huge improvement.
Optimizing your content for mobile devices could mean you have to get some work done to your site, but it’s how most people use the internet now, and even more, people will use it this way soon. So ignoring that mobile traffic and those users can potentially hurt your business.
Learn from these tips and start working on a mobile-friendly option today!