Why Mobile Web Design Matters for Your Brand

When the availability of mobile internet first became a reality, it was felt that it would be a huge development, but even the early expectations for its uptake were a vast underestimate. As we near the quarter-way mark for the 21st Century, the importance of mobile compatibility and mobile web design for brands has become absolute. In the present day, cell phone internet access has become by some considerable margin the primary way we go online. In fact, given the casual nature with which we can use the web, going online isn’t really something we do anymore. We are online.

The rise of mobile internet usage

Depending on how the data is gathered, there are as many as six billion mobile internet users in the world – possibly even more. Even at a conservative estimate, the percentage of people on the planet who use the internet primarily on their phones is understood to exceed 60%. That’s something that few people foresaw when the first Wireless Access Protocol phones were launched in 1999. The increasing stability and affordability of wireless mobile data connections, and the growth of WiFi as a means of accessing cyberspace, have seen to it that while we may use laptops and PCs situationally, our phones are ever more important.

What this means for marketers and businesses who aim to achieve market penetration through online searches and opportunistic research is clear. If your online presence is not equipped to respond to people accessing the internet on their phones, then you barely have an online presence at all. Not least because the dominance of mobile usage is not expected to stop where it is; estimates are that among multi-device users, the 70% mark is not just possible, but likely to be achieved, and potentially within the next couple of years.

The impact of mobile web design on user experience

As with the frequency of mobile internet usage, the statistics on the impact of mobile web design vary depending on who you ask. That variation does not swing between low salience and high; once again, it’s between “high” and “even higher”. The difference between studies indicates that the percentage of users who are likely to return to or stay on a mobile-responsive site may be in the high sixties, or as high as 75%. Ask yourself: How likely are you to stay on a commercial site and complete an order if the process of using your phone to do it is complicated or slow?

Or ask a statistician: 53% of mobile users expect a mobile website to load within three seconds. Poorly-optimized mobile sites have a bounce rate in the region of 52%. That means that for everybody who accesses those sites, more than one in two of them almost immediately goes elsewhere, and they’re not minded to return. You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, and particularly not a page impression. Mobile web design is simply not something that can be ignored by any serious online marketer.

SEO benefits of mobile optimization

If you are aiming to make an impact in business through reaching out to mobile customers, then you cannot ignore the importance of optimizing your sites for mobile users. To do so would be to cut yourself off from as much as two-thirds of your target audience. Neglecting the mobile search market in 2024 would be like ignoring the internet altogether in 2014. That would have been considered an absurd thing to do, so it is easy to see how much of an uphill battle is faced by marketers who don’t figure online searchers into their plans.

Google leans heavily on mobile-first indexing, which means that websites which are mobile-friendly are prioritized in search results. So if a business is not serious about making its mobile experience better for customers, it will not only turn off more than half of the people who navigate to its site – it will also dramatically shrink the available traffic that ever gets to the site in the first place. Businesses that optimize their sites for mobile usage immediately increase their organic search traffic, along with the increase in potential customers who then stay on the site.

Best practices for implementing mobile design

There’s plenty to reckon with about the what and the why of mobile design above, but for marketers keen to increase their mobile reach, the “how” is as big a question. How can a rich and satisfactory mobile experience be delivered for customers? The following are a few key examples:

  • Optimizing images for mobile use will ensure that pages load faster. Compressing those images using dedicated services like TinyPNG or ImageOptim will help, as will using modern image formats such as WebP.
  • Minimizing HTTP requests by combining CSS, JavaScript and HTML files will reduce the demand on browsers. A content delivery network will also help by delivering content geographically.
  • Enabling browser caching to include elements like stylesheets, scripts and images, as well as using asynchronous loading, will ensure the critical content is prioritized and loads sooner.
  • Leveraging Google’s AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) will enable the creation of faster-loading pages.

Equally, making it easier for customers to move around a site on their phone will be vital. The priority is “thumb-friendly” navigation, which involves:

  • Designing for reachability by placing key interaction elements within the “thumb zone”. Buttons and “burger menus” should be kept out of the top corners of the screen, which are hard to reach with a thumb.
  • Larger tap targets, keeping important icons and buttons no smaller than 48×48 pixels, make things easier to press and eases navigation.
  • Spacing of targets is also important. If someone wants to navigate to the Home page and keeps accidentally pressing another button, they’ll find another site.
  • Optimizing for one-handed use by using floating action buttons (FABs) and bottom sheet menus will allow easier navigation and decrease bounce rate.

Common pitfalls in mobile design

Mistakes are easy to make in mobile design, but they are also easy to not make, if you learn from the mistakes of others. There are numerous elements of mobile web design where it is possible to make errors, and the following are some of the most pernicious.

  • Pop-ups and interstitials: When someone navigates to a page, they want to see that page. If it is blocked by a pop-up, or an interstitial page appears first, they are prone to decide that they’d rather take their business elsewhere. There are times and places to highlight offers and capture information, and none of them are immediately upon landing on the site.
  • Small typography: It isn’t easy to fit all the information one wants onto one screen, but if faced with a choice between scrolling down to read it, and squinting to make out tiny lettering, there is not a single web user in the world who wouldn’t prefer to simply move their thumb a little bit. Cramming more information into one page is a UX no-no.
  • Fixed-width layouts: While a fixed-width layout may keep things tidy for some browser windows, it will result in poor rendering of content on others. This makes it hard to read and diminishes user experience, and users won’t play around with their screen to make it less so. They will simply go to another site, and they likely won’t come back.

The solution to these pitfalls, and others, is simple. Aim for mobile-friendly design as standard; most searches are on mobile, yes, but more than that, a mobile-first site will be simpler to follow on a laptop than vice-versa, so it is always smart to play the percentages.

Key trends in mobile design

Finally, landing more customers from your mobile site relies on intelligent usage of what is available and harnessing the salient trends. Of these, the two most important are voice searching and Augmented Reality (AR). Actionable steps that can be taken right now in these categories include:

  • Optimizing your content for natural conversational phrases and question-based queries. You may be used to optimizing for phrases like “best men’s shoes” or “vegan salad dressing”, but voice searches are more likely to be complete sentences like “Where can I buy the best men’s shoes” or “Can you recommend a salad dressing for vegan dieters?”.
  • Use FAQs and quick answers: It’s not always easy to fit question-based keywords into standard text, but an FAQ page with a digest of important information will help. Think about voice searchers when compiling an FAQ page and craft the questions the way someone is likely to ask them. For the answers, give key useful information in short sentences so people listen to the whole thing.
  • Integrate Web-AR on your site, making it possible to view AR elements without the need to download an app. The minimum number of steps between wanting to see something and actually seeing it is what customers want.
  • Use AR-ready CTAs. When displaying content designed to get people to click through and see more, this is an ideal place to include AR. Phrases like “Click to view item in a room” or “See virtual try-on” are easy to understand and encourage further action on a customer’s part.

For any business, the key to better results is giving customers as little reason as possible to hesitate in browsing their site. Badly-optimized mobile sites, or ones which haven’t ever been conceived for mobile use, are among the biggest drains on a potential customer base. At SouthMade, we’ve been assisting clients in making the right decisions for some time, and we’re only too happy to help you, too.

Woman comparing a mobile web design on her smartphone and laptop.

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