Mobile traffic is taking the Internet marketing world by storm.
According to Mobify, in 2013 more than 1.2 billion people accessed the internet from mobile devices, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that 15+% of all traffic can be accounted for by mobiles.
Clearly, it’s time to jump on the mobile optimization bandwagon (if you haven’t already). Otherwise, with an unoptimized website and marketing strategy, you could be losing up to 15% of your potential leads!
To help you get started with mobile optimization, here’s a list of 4 important elements of your business that are in desperate need of optimization.
Website
Your website should be your number one optimization priority. For many of your mobile visitors, your website will be their first interaction with your business.
By optimizing your design and website functions for mobile, you’ll ensure that their first impression is a positive one.
There’s no possible excuse for not having a responsive website that adapts to fit screen sizes. Practically all WordPress themes developed nowadays are built on 100% responsive frameworks — even the free ones.
In case you haven’t updated your design in a while and your theme isn’t responsive, then it’s a very simple matter to switch to a new theme or get a developer to custom-build one for you (which is nearly always the best option).
Email Marketing Program
Email is something that most people check multiple times a day. It’s a quick, simple task for which few want to go through the trouble of turning on their desktop and logging into their email client. It’s much easier to just check email via a mobile device.
Consequently, over 48% of emails are opened on mobile devices. That’s just about half your entire mailing list. And if your emails aren’t optimized for mobile viewing, 69% of users will simply delete your email! You could easily be losing a third of your mailing list’s efficacy to nothing more than a design flaw.
Although email optimization is too complex a topic to get into detail in this post, here are a few general guidelines:
- reduce image sizes and file sizes
- make call to actions and links bigger
- use responsive email templates
Squeeze Page
Your squeeze page is an integral part of your overall email marketing strategy. It’s the gateway through which your visitors convert and enter into your mailing list.
In other words, your squeeze page is really important.
And if it isn’t optimized for mobile traffic, guess what happens? That’s right – all your mobile conversions go kapeesh. Wasted. Down the drain.
Optimize landing pages by increasing the sizes of each field in the registration form and also by enlarging the sign up button (it’s good to have the navigational menu off-canvas, too).
Shopping Cart and Checkout Flow
Your shopping cart and checkout process is where the money is made. That’s where your visitors make the ultimate conversion and send money to your bank account.
In your shopping cart, you’ll have to reduce the amount of clutter there is compared to the desktop view. That means no related product panels, unnecessary banners, etc.
Learn from Amazon’s example: product, image, price, availability, and subtotal (plus 2-3 other essentials). That’s really all that’s necessary.
For your checkout process, do much the same thing in terms of removing unnecessary design elements. Smashing Magazine recommends allowing visitors to checkout as guests, since the time-consuming and tedious task of creating an account in a small 4 in. screen can put off mobile customers.
Wrapping Up
Here’s a quick recap of what elements of your Internet marketing you need to optimize for mobile and how to do so:
- website – use a responsive WordPress theme or HTML template
- email marketing – use responsive email templates, increase CTA sizes, and decrease image sizes
- squeeze page – increase field & CTA size
- shopping cart & checkout – declutter and allow guest checkouts
If you’re already optimized for all these 4 elements, then you’re way ahead of the curve. If you haven’t started optimizing any of these yet, then it’s high time you did so!
If you know of any tricks I didn’t mention, please share them in the comments below!
Jonathan John is a WordPress enthusiast and freelance blogger. He loves comparing WordPress plugins and themes, sharing the latest Automattic news, and helping non-techies get the most out of the world’s favorite CMS.
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