A few months back, we posted some guidance about retooling your site to meet the expectations of mobile users.
While that advice remains valid, a revisit seems in order in light of recent ComScore research showing that over 89 million people – nearly 40% of all mobile subscribers – in the US accessed the Internet from their mobile device. Which basically means that no matter what your business, way too many of your customers to ignore are encountering your website or blog from something other than a desktop/laptop.
One expert observer of the scene, Virginie Glaenzer (Marketing Director for iLoop Mobile) has posted 10 tips for creating a successful mobile website over on Social Media Today; we’ve summarized most of them in what follows…
Browser recognition is a must for a “best” user experience; also, you’ll need to put a device testing strategy in place for the phone types associated with your target audiences. Smart phones and feature phones differ radically in user experience, so you’ll need to design for the limitations or extended capabilities of both types.
You’re going to be limited by screen real estate and perhaps also bandwidth, so keep content concise and designs appropriate for the small screen. Move key product teasers or other highly relevant content near the top, so they aren’t missed. Memory limitations may also apply to some devices, which requires attention to overall page size.
Avoid making text into images; not only does it remove that relevant text from the indexing reach of search-engine bots, it also increases page-load time. If you can recall all those years of surfing the Internet via a dial-up modem, using a smart phone today on a carrier data network can be pretty similar. For the same reason, you should use simple text links for off-page navigation, avoiding overuse of cutesy graphic buttons.
Use style sheets to optimize for the various handsets, and start considering that optimization early in the design process.
Keep URLs short. And if your mobile site shares the same URL as your primary website, make sure the website URL redirects appropriately to the mobile site.
Add buttons for social networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), which will increase reach and eventually ROI.
Need to check out some examples of successful mobile sites? Virginie’s company’s website features links to over 25 of them …most are very well-known brands.
Have you implemented a mobile site yet? Can you share any tips that you’ve discovered?
