How to optimize your mobile presence in 3 steps

The use of mobile devices in e-commerce is overwhelming. We have been talking about this for months, so today we’re going to give you 3 simple steps to optimize your mobile presence.

There are many reasons and all of them are quite important. The first thing you have to keep in mind is that people use their mobile phones to browse and buy.  That’s just how it is, you can’t expect it to change just because you do not like it.

Websites optimized for mobiles are more user-friendly, have a greater findability, seem more trustworthy, well they technically have no problems... All these things make the user’s shopping experience go smoothly and eliminate friction points that compromise conversion. 

And then, there’s the issue of attracting and retaining customers.  Google gives more and more importance to pages working correctly on mobile devices. It’s so important to Google that it is expected that it starts using its specific bot to build a mobile index next year (it’s known asMobile First Index).

Attracting customers is not only SEO, of course.  But in the case of PPC, it is equally critical to optimize your mobile presence on the pages your ads point to.   It is essential that every visit converts because each click costs money (And sometimes a lot).

These are 3 tips that can be solved easily and that are worth your time and effort.

Please note that we are no longer talking about “mobile friendly”, we’re going a step higher.

During the design phase, you should think first about the needs and interaction your users have with the mobile phone before those related to the desktop.  That is the main difference between Mobile First and Mobile Friendly, which may seem the same but it is conceptually very different.

The challenge is to keep the essential content on both the Desktop and Mobile version, but starting with the latter to design the graphics, the navigation, and usability of the site.

I would recommend you to start from a prototyping tool (I like Moqups a lot) and to define in detail the look your web should have on mobile. Then perform some tests, all you can, and by direct observation check the operation.

Keep in mind this when choosing the platform in which you will develop your eCommerce, it is not easy on some of them. In   Oleoshop we know that it is one of the strongest trends for the coming years and, precisely for that reason, all shops created with our software are developed from the perspective of mobile users.

The same as in desktop versions, the page’s loading speed is a critical factor.   Actually, it is even more relevant for mobile devices, since the user seeks greater immediacy. 

To make matters worse, the user is subjected to a connection that’s not so fast as an optic fiber connection, and that is more unstable since it relies on the area’s current coverage, the data plan and other factors you can not foresee. 

We’re talking about simple optimizations for Mobile but we get into complex issues regarding performance (compression, cache, reducing requests...).  Nevertheless, there is a component that is easy to apply and it’s where most websites fail: unoptimized images.

Not everything is speed, it is also important that you control the user experience when interacting with your eCommerce.

There are some simple points that are important to consider. For example:

• The proximity of the elements: for mobile browsing, we use our fingers, and that means we are not as accurate as a mouse cursor.  Make sure the buttons are big enough and that links have enough separation among themselves so you can press them without touching two at the same or having to zoom up. 
  

• Readability: Sometimes we use really small fonts, other times we choose a good-size but difficult-to-read font. 

• Insufficient color contrasts:  If you put a light gray letter on a white background, you won’t be able to read it on a small screen.  Try to find an equilibrium, please do not use red letters on a black background. Do not generate "suffering" or unnecessary visual stress.

• They have previous experiences: Users browse on the mobile all day, so they expect to zoom up or scroll with a gesture they are used to pinching or dragging the screen (for example). 

These are just a couple of tips, you can get more tips directly from your project if you use this Google tool with a verified property in Google Search Console.