Get it to go: Make your design and content work for the new mobile web

When you visit a website with your smartphone, you love that you have to scroll all the way across the top of the site and pick through paragraph after paragraph of content to find what you were looking for, right? Even better are the tiny links crammed together so you keep tapping on the wrong page!

Wait, that isn’t convenient and you never visit those websites again?

That is the reaction of your customers when your design and content do not work on the go. If you’ve never experienced this yourself and don’t think this is a problem, here’s why you’re wrong:

• One in every eight web page views is from a mobile device, according to comScore.
• 85 percent of mobile devices will be web-enabled by this year and over the past year mobile searches have quadrupled, according to Google’s GoMo initiative.
• There are 98 million smartphone subscriptions in the United States alone (comScore).
• Most importantly, 75 percent of customers prefer a mobile-friendly site (Google).

So why aren’t you giving your customers what they want?

Designing for mobile devices may require a little extra effort up front, but the return on investment is clear: Companies that optimize their websites and content for mobile devices have 80 percent increased web traffic than those that aren’t optimized. And those companies see a 55 percent increase in the number of repeat visitors (Aberdeen).

A few things to keep in mind as you make your website and its content mobile-friendly:

• Give people only the information they need for the device they are using. Smartphones are perfect for on the go information while tablets can feature more interactive content.
• Keep text short and to the point and design clean and simple. People use touch screens to navigate on mobile sites and messy design or crowded text can lead to frustrating “fat finger” mistakes.
• Keywords and search are still just as important as with a full website. With shorter content, it’s even more important to use keywords strategically and organically.
• You don’t have to completely separate a mobile site and a full website, simply include links to the full site on the mobile version.

When you make your design and content work for the new mobile web, you open yourself up to new opportunities, new markets and new, happy customers. Do it up right and get started today.