There are an increasing number of mobile users relative to desktop users in accessing the internet. Therefore, small businesses cannot ignore them since they risk losing a significant market share. Quartz reported that 80 percent of online activity happens on mobile devices, which is a significant market share for companies. Consequently, companies with an online presence cannot ignore the mobile segment. “The data shows that if you ignore mobile usability as a webmaster/business owner, you do it at your peril. Your site must look good and feel good on mobile. We are constantly split testing and keeping up to date with page speeds on mobile, because so many people have a smartphone now” says Kane Georgiou, owner of The Money Pig.
However, the desktop and mobile conversion rates can vary widely because of the differences in the efficiency with which companies have deployed both systems. The following five ways on how to boost your mobile conversions will lead to better outcomes for your small businesses by helping them tap into this growing segment in e-commerce.
1. Ramp up the Site’s Speed
We are a generation on-the-go, especially for digital natives such as millennials and Generation Z. A second can feel like millennia when browsing the internet. Einstein said time is relative and people’s experience browsing the internet show this firsthand. Users who experience lags on the internet might lose interest in the page, which means lost revenues and market share for small businesses. A page that takes more than three seconds to load leads to lost interest. The lag could be because of the differences between mobile and desktop architectures. Website speed tools could help determine how slow or fast your websites are. Some of the best speed tools include Google Analytics Site Speed, Google Mobile Website Speed Testing Tool, Pingdom, and Google PageSpeed Insights. If the website speed is slow, you can optimize it by compressing image files into smaller sizes, using a network of servers to cache the site rather than just one server and using browser caching to ensure pages load faster.
2. Improve the Site’s User-Friendliness
User-friendliness is important for any device, whether desktop or mobile. The user should be able to interact seamlessly and effortlessly with the device, especially when doing new tasks when new to the site and recovering from mistakes like incorrect information input. Tools that test the user-friendliness of mobile websites such as UserZoom and UXCam are easy ways to help small businesses assess their app or mobile website’s usability. Once you have identified the level of usability, there are various measures you could take to improve the website. You could ensure is space for tapping elements on the screen to reduce user frustration because of tapping the wrong link or button, highlighting selected elements such as buttons, and ensuring that the user can tap the call to action (CTA) to make conversion easier.
3. Make the Mobile Site Easier to Navigate
Navigation and usability are two different things when it comes to increasing mobile conversion rates. Navigability refers to the ease with which a user can get from one point or the other of the website while usability refers to the overall efficiency of the mobile site. Give your website to a friend and ask him or her how easy it is to navigate. If he finds it difficult, you should consider making some changes to the website. Desktop and mobile desktop menus can differ significantly. Small businesses need to make sure that the mobile menu is as easy to navigate as the desktop menu. The user experience on the mobile menu should be the same as that on the website. Some of the improvements to mobile websites you could make include adding an easily visible and accessible search bar to ensure that users can see it and search for items when they are lost. The search bar should be the user’s GPS when navigating the site. If the user is lost in the digital woods, let the search bar lead him back to familiar territory. Using indicators such as common symbols, arrows, and texts to direct users to CTAs and using popular links to menu items could add to the navigability of the mobile website. Users will appreciate the time spent making it easy to find what they are looking for.
4. Deploy Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO allows users to find your website easily while searching on engines such as Google. Any small business can engage in this easy process with minimal training or aptitude. First, the small business needs to understand how well its site is doing using tools such as Google’s mobile testing tool. If you find that the mobile site is not optimized, the tool will provide ways to fix it. There are proactive measures you could take to improve your site’s visibility. Using pop-ups might be an option for increasing the app’s online visibility but you should use them as lightly as possible to ensure users do not get distracted and to avoid Google sanctions against pop-up advertising. Everyone knows how annoying pop-ups can be when you are trying to do work on the mobile phone. It is good practice to avoid intrusive advertising on mobile websites and apps.
Other SEO measures you could take include using simple and short headlines. The motto in mobile websites and apps and most of everything else should be Keep It Simple Stupid (K.I.S.S.). No user wants to be bogged down in mountains of details when they are trying to get to one item on the menu. Use bold, italics, and bullet points to divide content into manageable parts to make it easier for user consumption. An important reminder is that Google has a higher preference for Accelerated Mobile Pages in search engines. Therefore, a lean but mean mobile website design is preferable to a large and complicated one. To understand the level of SEO your mobile has, go to the SE Ranking website and see how well your mobile website ranks in terms of visibility in search engines. Then take the aforementioned measures to improve your SEO.
5. Checkout Optimization
Often, the aim of your mobile website is to make money. You would be surprised at how many users can bail out of the purchasing process at the last stage during checkout. The user might want to purchase the product but a complex and lengthy checkup process could exhaust him or her. The Baymard Institute states that about 28 percent of users leave the purchasing process at the checkout. Consider carrying a trolley full of goods to the checkout point at Wal-Mart then electing to abandon them.Other customers at the store would consider your behavior absurd, and rightly so.
That is what about a third of the users do during online shopping. So what can you do to make users finish what they started? Reduce the number of checkout steps. Make the process appear as though it is happening at a Wal-Mart but without the long queues and the haughty cashier who has had a long day. The online shopping experience should be convenient and fast compared to brick-and-mortar retailing. CTA buttons, simple payment buttons, guest checkouts as an option, and shortening the checkout process are additional options you could use to ensure the user crosses the finish line.
The mobile environment is a great space for small businesses to sell their products and services to compete effectively in the ever-growing e-commerce industry and make money beyond their wildest dreams. Small businesses should harmonize their desktop and mobile websites to ensure they are optimized for positive customer experience. Mobile websites are increasing in popularity as options for most users. Therefore, small businesses should refocus their e-commerce strategies to capture this growing consumer segment.