Mobile advertising has grown exponentially during the past few years. You can shop, check bank accounts, tweet, play video games and more, all from the comfort of your own smartphone. Thinking back to the first cell phone my father owned, which resembled something like a large brick, it’s hard to believe technology has come so far. For this reason, adapting your website for mobile compatibility is becoming an integral component of most all search marketing strategies today. Of course there are some companies who might be thinking, why bother? Hopefully it is safe to say that no one reading this article falls under that category, but I can assure you that refining the mobile experience for your customers can be largely beneficial and worth your effort.
According to a recent mobile marketing study, 79% of smartphone users use their phones to help with shopping and 74% make a purchase as a result. Figures like these are difficult to neglect, so here are seven tips for creating killer mobile landing pages:
1. Place a Call-to-Action Above the Page Fold
It could be argued that calls-to-action are the bread and butter of PPC. These are universal for any landing page, including mobile, and should be placed above the page fold. A good call-to-action should tell your visitors what to do next and acts as the gateway to your conversion process. You can even go as far as including click-to-call features as part of your CTA, which is becoming largely popular among mobile advertisers.
2. Add a Search Function
As a search marketer, I always appreciate a good search function. Consider incorporating a search bar above the page fold for easy access and visibility of content. This way, if a user can’t find what they are looking for, they can always search as a backup. Who know, you might even gain new insights towards popular products that you should be highlighting. It never hurts to test!
3. Create a Clean Navigation System
Sloppy navigation can cause confusion and frustration. Consider arranging your nav. in vertical fashion and limit yourself to 4-6 headings/tabs. Paired with the search bar, this should suffice in most cases. This way, you can ensure that your content is easily accessible to visitors while avoiding higher bounce rates as well.
4. Use Large, Thumb-able Buttons
Size matters when it comes to the buttons on your website. Unlike a traditional desktop experience, users type and browse with their thumbs. For those of us with larger thumbs, miniature buttons are particularly annoying. More importantly, people aren’t interested in zooming every time they click a link. Therefore, consider using large, easily clickable buttons that are better suited to the mobile experience. Remember, your consumers are browsing with their fingers, not a mouse and pointer.
5. Avoid Data Heavy Pages With Slow Load Times
Lengthy page-loading times should be avoided. Consumers are in a rapid-fire state of mind when it comes to online shopping, and the mobile experience is no exception. Your mobile landing page should be lightweight and optimized for speed. Although many things contribute to your page-load time, you can limit the size of your page or consolidate scripts in the design stages to ensure fast and easy data transfer. On average, anything less than 20 KB total that loads in under 5 seconds is considered acceptable.
6. Avoid Using Flash & Other Incompatible Plug-ins
Utilizing Flash, frames, etc is another big no-no when creating your mobile landing page. Rather, consider using HTML5 or jQuery instead. These are both compatible with mobile formats and help ensure that your content is always available to your potential customers.
7. Avoid Having Too Much Content
There is a fine-line between having too much or too little content. For any mobile landing page, this becomes particularly important since you run into screen size limitations. Try placing yourself in the consumer’s shoes and think about the bare essentials. Create a clever and concise call-to-action. Reduce text and bullets. Highlight the top products/services. Remember, your full-browser and mobile landing pages do not need to be identical.
As smartphone usage continues to grow more and more each day, it is important to pay close attention to your customers’ browsing experience on mobile devices. Although this isn’t an exhaustive list, these seven tips can certainly help you garner better results from your mobile advertising efforts. What are some of the ways you have optimized your landing pages for mobile devices? Feel free to drop all of your awesome ideas below. Thanks for reading.
