Mobile Matters: 6 Ways to Optimise Your Website’s Mobile Experience

We live in a day and age where phones are essentially just mini pocket computers. In fact, almost 5 billion mobile users worldwide make up over half of all internet traffic. It’s safe to say that we can no longer assume that all of the users who come across our digital presence are doing so via desktop, as was the status quo in decades prior.

You might be wondering why this matters, or if it even applies to you. And I’m here to tell you that if you want to keep interest strong, increase the amount of inquiries you receive, and avoid alienating an entire chunk of your audience, you’re going to want to keep reading!

What is mobile experience and why does it matter?

At one point or another, you’ve probably used your phone to browse the internet and come across a website that was a little difficult to navigate. Maybe you even clicked out of it as a result. This is because the experience of using a desktop or tablet doesn’t always translate to smartphones in the same way. To keep your audience happy and engaged (and to prevent them from giving up on viewing your website entirely), you need to deliver a high-quality mobile experience.

Mobile experience is simply how your audience perceives your mobile application or website while using it. If they find it simple and easy to navigate, chances are their mobile experience is good! Conversely, the more complicated and clunky your app or website is, the worse your customer’s mobile experience will be.

The best way to ensure that your audience is satisfied with your mobile experience is to prioritise your mobile user base first and build outwards — meaning you start with mobile design (which has more restrictions) and THEN expand to web optimisation.

If you have yet to develop much of an online presence, great! This means you can start from the beginning and build an infrastructure for your app or mobile-website that will set the stage for expansion later on.

If you run an existing business with an established web presence, you may find that pivoting to a mobile-first approach is a bit more challenging. However, I want to assure you that it is 100% doable and well worth the effort.

So, what should you do to make sure your audience stays happy with the mobile experience you are providing? Let’s break down a few key mobile-first principles.

Figure out what your users want and give it to them.

The best way to guarantee a good mobile experience is to simply give your users what they want! Take note of how they typically interact with your website, hear their pain points and give them frequent opportunities to provide feedback, and create a customer journey map to figure out how your customers will likely be using your mobile app or website. If you stay consistent with these steps, you’ll soon start to get a sense of the recurring obstacles you need to address in your mobile experience.

The simpler, the better.

The key to a strong mobile experience is simplicity and accessibility. The more user-friendly your app or mobile website design is, the better. This doesn’t mean you can’t make a big impact, but it does mean you need to cater to a phone’s limited screen size and avoid overwhelming your audience in the process. You’ll be shocked at how straightforward doing this is — all you need to do is simplify your website enough to be able to offer the same content on both your web and mobile interfaces. All of your audience members deserve access to the same information. Instead of jeopardizing their mobile experience by paring down your app or mobile site significantly, instead figure out a way to present your usual content in a different format that is optimised for mobile.

Prioritise ease of navigation.

Designing mobile navigation successfully means designing for a small screen size. With limited real estate available, there’s no room for clutter. So, you need to ask yourself the following:

What’s the best way for users to access all the pages that my app or mobile site has to offer? The go-to solution for this is the hamburger menu, which opens a fly-in menu with navigation links when clicked.
What links do I need to include to help my audience complete priority tasks and easily gain access to the information I want most readily available to them? Remember, your users don’t want to wonder what buttons do or where links will take them. This information should be highly intuitive to your audience.
Am I accounting for finger and hand positioning? It’s frustrating to have to tap or zoom in on an icon repeatedly due to poor placement or sizing. Your buttons and links should be large and well-placed enough that most people are able to tap them successfully on the first try.
What does my website architecture look like? Not even good navigation can save poor website architecture. Make sure that your pages are arranged in a way that will make sense to your users and will allow them to get where they want to go on your app or mobile site as efficiently as possible.

Make sure things run smoothly (and quickly).

We’ve all experienced the frustration that comes with a slow-loading app or mobile website. It’s definitely one of those things that can make us give up on using the app or mobile website entirely. You don’t want to drive your mobile user base away due to poor performance, so be sure to assess speed and quality often and run tests whenever potential obstacles pop up.

Make it easy for your audience.

“Interaction cost” is the amount of physical and mental effort required to perform an action on your website. You want your app or mobile site to have a very low interaction cost. This is so that your users don’t get annoyed with how much effort they have to exert to complete a given task and abandon ship halfway through the process. Reduce interaction cost by limiting your website to the most essential pages possible (while still delivering the same wow-worthy experience that you do on desktop, of course) and avoiding energy-zapping web design elements like long forms, tiny text, pop-ups, and complicated navigation menus.

Design the layout to be responsive.

Responsive design delivers multiple, adjustable layouts of the content and design that automatically displays properly based on the device or screen size the user is interacting with. This will ensure consistency across all devices, so that your mobile-users aren’t greeted with a wonky-looking version of your expertly designed web app or site.

As an expert business coach and marketing consultant, I can help you start creating a plan that will guarantee an epic mobile experience for your users, even if you’re new to mobile-first optimisation. For more help figuring out how to move forward, click here to book a triage call today.