How to avoid mistakes when optimising your site for mobile?
26th April 2018
In today’s digital landscape, optimising your website for mobile devices is crucial since a significant portion of internet users access websites through their smartphones and tablets.
Can you ensure users get the same experience of your site on a mobile device as they do on a desktop? Multidevice optimisation comes in various forms, but it is understood that it is not just a passing trend. With the mobile-first index fully rolled out; it has become increasingly imperative for companies to adopt a robust mobile strategy.
Understanding the Mobile-First Index
The mobile-first index means Google creates its search listings based on the mobile version of the content, even for listings that are shown to desktop users. If your mobile version has less content on page A than the desktop version of page A, then Google will probably just see the mobile version with less content. Google recommends going with a responsive approach to ensure the content is the same on a page-by-page basis from your desktop to your mobile site. Mobile versions are still in use but there is more room for error.
A great user experience begins with extensive research into both the user journey and the constraints of mobile. Some of the mistakes to avoid will no doubt appear conspicuous, but with the UK leading the world in mobile internet use, the devil is in the detail.
Responsive design.
Use a responsive design that adapts your website’s layout and content to various screen sizes. This ensures that your site looks and works well on devices with different dimensions.
Mobile-first approach.
Design your website with a mobile-first approach. Start by creating a design that works well on small screens and then scale up for larger devices. This approach ensures that your site is optimised for mobile users from the beginning.
Don’t hide content
Some companies make the false assumption that users want a simplified experience on mobile. It’s important to remember that mobile users want to see everything that the desktop user can and delivered faster. Your content should provide fantastic value to your user-base. Knowing your audience, their online behaviors and habits should be a constant pursuit for webmasters as it offers opportunities for optimisation.
Tabbed content
On desktop, content hidden under tabs may not be weighted as high, but on mobile content like this will be given full weight if done for user experience purposes.
Use descriptive and search friendly headings to prioritise content you want visitors to see first with a brief description of each paragraph, then hide the rest of the content under tabs and as long as it’s still visible to search engine crawlers, it will get indexed. Google considers anything that’s in the HTML.
Gated content
Gated content is not recommended if you want to increase your user engagement and reduce bounce rate. Gated content can increase sales leads and filters out those who are ‘just browsing’ but on mobile it’s much more disruptive to the user experience, as the touch screen makes inputting information difficult. Ungated content, on the other hand, builds trust with prospects and viewers, removes roadblocks for consumers and can help with SEO (more traffic, shares and inbound links). Give users a chance to experience your brand and your offering without an immediate commitment.
When it comes to international content, the same rules apply as they do on desktop – avoid Google translate and similar tools; instead invest in natural and localised content translation.
Technical blunders
Technical aspects have a particularly big influence on phone search results. These can include anything from page load times to text and images sizes and more.
Make sure your website is fast
Mobile users are often on slower connections, so optimize your website for fast loading times.
According to Google;
“Slow loading sites frustrate users and negatively impact publishers. While there are several factors that impact revenue, our model projects that publishers whose mobile sites load in 5 seconds earn up to 2x more mobile ad revenue than those whose sites load in 19 seconds.3 The study also observed 25% higher ad viewability4 and 70% longer average sessions5 for sites that load in 5 seconds vs 19 seconds.”
Source: Think with Google: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-154/insights-inspiration/research-data/need-mobile-speed-how-mobile-latency-impacts-publisher-revenue/
Page load is part of ranking algorithm and has a huge influence on bounce rate and engagement.
Optimise your images
Users should be delivered the perfect image size for their chosen device, but it must be served using correct specifications to ensure fast page load.
Touch friendly elements
Ensure that buttons and other interactive elements are appropriately sized for touchscreens. They should be easy to tap without accidentally clicking on nearby elements.
Readable font sizes
Use fonts that are easily readable on small screens. Avoid very small font sizes that could strain users’ eyes.
Be selective with your CTAs
Decide what you want your visitors to do and add simple and easy to notice calls to action. Sticky navigation is an excellent way of making sure CTAs are visible throughout.
Check your mobile site’s use of interstitials and popup ads
Avoid intrusive pop-ups that can be challenging to close on small screens. Interstitial can frustrate users because they are unable to easily access the content that they were expecting when they tapped on the search result. If you need to use pop-ups, ensure they are easy to dismiss.
On January 10, 2017. Google announced that “pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as high.”
Optimise your mages
Users should be delivered the perfect image size for their chosen device but it has to be served using correct specifications to ensure fast page load.
Be selective with your CTAs
Decide what you want your visitors to do, and add simple and easy to notice calls to action. Sticky navigation is an excellent way of making sure CTAs are visible throughout.
Other technical considerations:
- Minimise requests by removing unnecessary elements from your page. For example, there may be a redundant JavaScript that can be consolidated to improve speed.
- Don’t block your files such as JavaScript, CSS or image files as it may affect your rankings. Check Google Search Console or use Google Mobile Friendly tool to check for any potential indexing issues.
- Check your mobile site’s use of interstitials and popup ads. If you’re displaying any popup that covers your screen, you need to rethink your mobile design. As of January 10, Google announced that“pages, where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results, may not rank as high.”
- Evade bad redirects and broken links. A common error is to redirect a user trying to access a URL on a desktop site to an irrelevant URL on a mobile site or vice versa. Another problem can be caused by redirect loops, when users attempt to visit desktop site but are redirected back to the mobile site.
- Add rich snippets to improve your click through rates.
- Specify mobile viewport using viewport meta tag to control your pages’ dimensions and scaling.
- Test the usability across all devices to find discrepancies and suggest improvements. Test your site with a Mobile Friendly tool: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
- Avoid using Flash. Flash is not supported on most mobile devices and can lead to compatibility issues. Use modern web technologies like HTML5 instead.
The Journey to mobile excellence
Google is rewarding sites with good mobile experiences. There is a lot of evidence that mobile-friendliness is a ranking factor. If your website’s user experience is poor, it will not rank as high as mobile-friendly sites. Conclusion? Develop a strong mobile experience and you will be justly rewarded.
Transforming your website into a responsive, device-agnostic digital presence can be daunting, but the potential to connect with your audience anytime anywhere is thrilling. By embracing mobile optimisation with a focus on quality, you’re equipped to succeed in this dynamic digital landscape.
