At first you only saw them in the holiday-season TV commercials. Then suddenly it seemed like no one had a plain old cell phone anymore; they had all moved up to smart phones. In fact, it’s forecast that there will be 1.7 billion mobile Internet users by 2013.
In case you think those are all people looking for a good restaurant while out on the town …think again. The execs of your B2B customers and prospects are also among them, trying to maintain a level of productivity while on the road. And one of the tasks they just might be engaged in is checking out your company as a potential supplier.
Ever wondered how your website would look on one of those tiny screens? …or how long it would take your pages to load via those relatively slow cellular connections? Here’s an easy way to find out: take your iPhone or Droid down to Starbucks (you don’t have to actually leave town) and bring up your site. Chances are you’ll be in for a bit of a shock, on several dimensions.
The good news? …it’s not too late to start making your site more mobile-friendly; in fact, you can still be well ahead of the curve. We found some great pointers for doing so in a post by Shane Ketterman over on Copyblogger…
Review your navigation …and in fact your information architecture. If it’s difficult for desktop users to find what they’re looking for on your site, it’s gonna be 3-4 times as hard for mobile users …meaning the most likely outcome is that they lose patience and simply leave. You’ve simply got to present them with clear, distinct pathways to your most important content.
It can be difficult for “insiders” to spot these difficulties… either because you’re just so familiar with the site that you’ve long since stopped seeing its deficiencies, or because your insider knowledge leads you to make connections that wouldn’t occur to outsiders. Because of this, it’s generally a good idea to ask an outside firm to do an objective audit of your site, using “fresh eyes” that will more closely approximate those of your visitors.
Clean up your content. Now more than ever, you need to grab your reader’s attention instantly. Because your site is being viewed on a much smaller screen, you need compelling headlines that let the reader know (s)he’s going to have a great experience reading this content. The small screen, combined with the many ambient distractions that frequently accompany mobile use, also puts an even greater premium on conciseness and getting straight to the point.
Limit use of images. No question, images can be a great way to get a point across or liven up your text; but just try to imagine someone viewing your content on a really slow connection with a tiny little screen. The better course of wisdom is to limit your images to those really needed to clarify the point(s) your copy is making.
Don’t rely on Flash or Javascript. We’ve stressed this point forever (pre-mobile), for the simple reasons that search engines don’t know what to make of Flash, and its use can put off some impatient visitors and work against getting down to the real business of your website. Now bring in mobile, and it’s generally a safe bet that not all mobile devices will be able to properly serve up either of these technologies …and even if they can, it tends to take an extra step or two to actually view the content. Your best practice is to stick with plain old (X)HTML/CSS standards.
Practice good design. Of course, we hope you’ve done this anyway, but… design problems that are mere irritants when viewed on a desktop can be fatal on the small screen. To avoid them:
- Keep in mind, whitespace around paragraphs actually serves a purpose; if your content is so dense that it makes readers feel like they’ve blundered into a college textbook, they probably won’t stay for very long.
- Make your content scannable: break up long blocks of text and use bullets.
- Cluttered, visually busy sites can be confusing on a large screen; don’t ask your mobile readers to go there!
Install a mobile plugin. At least if you’re using WordPress, you can transform your site into a mobile-friendly version in about 30 seconds with a simple plugin. There are a lot of these plugins around, but WP Touch is a great place to begin. It’s free, and you can customize it to best suit your site.
Make sure you give readers the choice of viewing your standard site as well (there are options in each plugin to do this); some readers may want to view the full website, depending on their device and internet connection speed.
By following these tips, you can begin making your website content more mobile-friendly. Get started on them now, and chances are you’ll be ahead of the competition.
