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Oct 5, 2021
Florida SEO
In this modern digital world, mobile devices have become an integral part of life. Almost everyone couldn’t leave their homes without their smartphones. What’s more, without any good WiFi, a lot of people would feel as if it’s the end of the world. Crazy, huh?
With the average person spending 47 minutes per day on mobile social media apps alone, ignoring mobile marketing wouldn’t be such a good idea for companies and marketers.
More and more consumers are now shifting away from computers and laptops, and instead, rely on their mobile devices to browse and shop online. For instance, a 2019 study found that 57% of Americans used a mobile retail app to search for more info about a product or service, with 51% of them making a purchase.
Presently, there are 280 million people across the country who access the Internet using their phones. By 2025, the number’s expected to rise by 10 million to 86.7% of Americans.
Obviously, these stats should be enough to tell you that you should optimize your website for mobile as soon as you finish reading this post. Luckily for you, a leading Florida SEO company will be providing you with all the right tips and tricks to make it work.
We’ll be looking at six proven tactics to keep your website as mobile-friendly as possible. But first, let’s have you find out why a mobile-optimized website is extremely crucial today.
In 2016, Google introduced a policy where search engines would only index websites that cater to mobile users. Seeing the dramatic shift in the way people browse the web, the tech giant felt that it only made sense to make the move.
Google doesn't like the idea of redirecting its users to sites that provide a stressful experience as it would only damage its promise to always deliver relevant content that people find valuable.
By the end of 2021, Google will be 100% mobile-first. Unless you don’t mind not getting your site crawled by bots for ranking, you have no choice but to develop a solid mobile SEO strategy.
Providing a mobile-first experience doesn't mean that you aim to please Google's search engine bots. Rather, you should optimize your site for mobile users. Your goal is to give them a smooth and pleasant experience as they're browsing online with their smartphones.
That being said, here’s how you can make it all happen:
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Simplicity is a key ingredient in mobile optimization.
Since phone screens are significantly smaller than desktop and laptop screens, it’s important to simplify your navigation menu so mobile users won’t have a hard time figuring out where to go and what to do.
The hamburger menu style is becoming increasingly popular among mobile versions of websites. Considering that it takes up less space on the screen while ensuring that the user can easily select the menu items with their fingers, we can definitely see why.
To give you an idea of how it works, a hamburger menu is basically an icon that opens to reveal a navigation menu once someone clicks it. The menu is a stack of three horizontal lines that resemble a burger - top bun, patty, and bottom bun.
What’s great about this menu style is that it provides direct navigation access. Users can go to their desired section without having to scroll through the entire content or clicking on the screens anymore. Plus, it keeps them focused on the core functions you want them to see.
Besides using the hamburger menu, below are three other tips to simplify navigation:
If you’re using visuals for personal preference, and not UX, then you’ll certainly need to learn more about media optimization. Bear in mind that visual elements like photos, icons, illustrations, and images are the biggest bandwidth consumers on web pages.
The thing is, a smaller web page size translates to faster loading speed. Nobody likes to wait on their phones these days. Websites usually lose visitors if they take more than three seconds to load.
This is exactly why you need to resize your images. Resizing can actually trim up to 80% of the total image size, depending on your required dimensions. However, since we’re talking about mobile devices here, your pixel range should be between 600px and 700px at most. In case you’re using full-size photos, you can just provide them as alternative links.
Reducing file size also helps shave off some extra KBs off of your visual content. Compression is the way to go here, and don’t worry, you don’t have to be a compression expert at all. There are many image compression tools available to make our life more convenient.
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The fact that mobile devices screens are small and narrow is why you need to apply this tactic.
Based on our experiences as a Florida SEO agency, we can totally say that mobile content should be straightforward. No one seems to have the patience to read long articles from their tiny smartphones anymore. They’ll only leave the page and head over to another one that provides shorter content.
Cut your message down to a few short paragraphs, with each paragraph containing at least two to four sentences. These shorter chunks of information will be so much easier to read and digest when people are looking at them from a mobile device.
Mobile users don’t have any access to a mouse and keyboard, which makes it problematic for them to type text when they’re on your website.
If your desktop version has options where your visitors are required to input text, consider replacing them with a list of radio buttons. That way, they can pick the appropriate value without difficulty.
Take forms, for example. They’re a bit more complicated to fill out on mobile devices compared to laptops and computers, which is why it’s best to limit the number of form fields for your visitors.
See to it that the fields are only asking for necessary details and consider minimizing the number of fields that need text entry. The use of dropdowns and checkboxes can make a huge difference as well.
Everybody hates pop-ups. Not only are they annoying, but they can be incredibly harmful to the user experience. The more pop-ups you have, and the harder they are to close, the higher your chances are of losing your visitors.
The best way to solve pop-up issues on mobile is by avoiding them altogether. If we were you, we’d replace our ads and promotions with CTAs that lead to landing pages. Trust us, that works every time.
However, if the situation really calls for the use of a pop-up, make sure to perform several user testing to ensure it's easy for users to close it from all sorts of mobile devices.
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Just because your website is finally fully optimized for mobile users doesn’t mean that everyone is satisfied. Remember, there will always be people who’ll want to learn more about your business.
The solution? Provide the option to access the full site of your company!
With it, your visitors can have access to all the features and content found on your site’s desktop version. Also, since there will be lots of scrolling involved, you might want to add “Back to Top” links so that users can jump back to the start of the page with ease.
Digital Resource has your back! Our team of SEO specialists will be more than happy to make your website a top hit among mobile users nationwide.
Then again, that’s not the only way we can help your business stand out and get ahead of the competition. We also specialize in web design, social media marketing, paid ads, content creation, reputation management, and more!
Contact us today to know how we can make you a major player in your industry.
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