Does Your Site Look Good On Mobile?

There’s simply no escaping the fact that mobile is starting to gnaw aggressively into the overall internet usage pie. In fact, according to KPBC research, at sometime during 2014, it’s widely believed that mobile internet use will eclipse its desktop counterpart – and there’s unlikely to be any looking back.

There’s plenty more stats too – for example, HubSpot says that 40% of smartphone owners use apps to compare prices on the go. If you’ve not already got some semblance of a mobile marketing blueprint, now’s a very good time to start.

In this article we’ll look at some mobile marketing tips to push you off in the right direction – and we’ll reveal some free cool tools to help you too.

Tools & Tips To Help Kickstart Your Mobile Marketing

1. Make Your Site Look Slick On Mobile Devices. Old web technology simply wasn’t designed for a pleasant mobile browsing experience. The first step is to check out how well your site runs on various mobile devices. The below tools will help:

  • See How Your Site Looks On iPhone (iPhoney). Simply tap in your URL and iPhoney will actually show you how your site looks. Given the meteoric growth of tablets, another useful tool is iPad Peek. This site works in much the same way as iPhoney, in that the user only has to type in the URL and the site spits out a nice representation of how its seen by iPad users.  
  • Google Mobilizer. Is there anything Google isn’t into? The worlds biggest search engine provides the free mobilizer tool to help whittle down web pages and so making them mobile friendly.
  • Gomez. Like a strict teacher, the Gomez tool marks a comprehensive test that tells you just how mobile ready your site is. After you input the URL, the site spits out a scoring system between 1 and 5. It analyzes various parts of your site including stylesheets, caching and general code to assess mobile compatibility. An alternative to Gomez, and in fact even more detailed, is MobiReady.

2. Keep Your Mobile Site Simple & Easy To Navigate. There’s beauty in simplicity. Many smartphones and tablets contain virtual keypads and small screens. A clean navigation structure will encourage visitors to browse further – make the page fit without the need for horizontal scrolling, and offer key links and menus on the top and bottom to prevent the need for cumbersome scrolling up.

3. Encourage ACTION. What is it that you want your mobile visitor to do? Opt in to a mailing list? Buy something? It’s hard to optimize a site when you don’t have an end game in mind. Know what action you want your mobile visitors to take, and set your stall out accordingly.

4. Light Content. Just as your design and navigation should be lightweight, so too should your content. While a shuffle of bulky Youtube videos may go down well on your flagship site, a site for mobile use should ideally be far simpler in content. While mobile technology has certainly come a long way, most users still browse with half an eye on their bandwidth use – it’s probably why research shows that 60% of Youtube viewers do not complete viewing a video while on mobile devices.

Mobile internet has changed the way your target customers are checking out your products and services. If you don’t evolve by offering a mobile site that is at the very least clean and obliging, there’s a risk that your leads will hop to a competitor who does.