A few years back, businesses were able to get away without providing mobile websites to their viewers on-the-go. During that period, only a few businesses were willing to invest their money in building mobile websites and reach their targeted customers.
But today the times have changed significantly! The demand for a good mobile website has increased with the increasing number of mobile users in this fast-growing information age.
Is your standard business website meeting all the requirements of on-the-go users? No?
First, you should understand that simply having a regular business website is not just enough for doing business effectively and skillfully. In an ever-increasing mobile world, it is mandatory for every business to have an efficient mobile website to reach number of customers.
Before developing your mobile website, you need to keep some best practices in mind and use them to ensure that your mobile website is as good as it can be.
The following are the tips that help you to build a good mobile website for your business.
Tip 1 – Figure out the important information that your website viewers will probably look for. As a mobile website has restrictions on the amount of screen space, first you need to determine what content you need to include on your website.
Tip 2 – Keep your website layout as streamlined as possible. As mobile web pages load slower than standard web pages, it is obligatory to keep the number of web pages to a minimum.
Tip 3 – Match your company’s branding elements of your regular website to your mobile website. This makes your user who is familiar with your regular website will have a similar experience on your mobile website also.
Tip 4 – Avoid dumping loads of information on your mobile website. Leaving white space in your website not only provides a neat and more sophisticated experience but also ensures that the users can able to click the buttons and links properly they are aiming for.
Tip 5 – Avoid using Flash or Java in your mobile website. This is because many phones including Apple products such as iPhones and iPads do not support Flash. However, using Java or Flash will also make your website loads very slowly.
Tip 6 – Minimize the amount of text entry for your website users. Generally, typing tiny keywords is really troubling for mobile browsers. So, instead of making the users to type and search information, facilitate them by providing drop-down menus, checklists and pre-populated fields on your website.
Tip 7 – Avoid using Pop-Up windows because navigating between multiple browser windows is more difficult on mobile devices. However, it also makes your website loads slowly. In case, if you need to open a new browser, ensure that you alert the user so that they can able to easily navigate back to the original page.
Tip 8 – Make sure to put mobile website redirects on your website. This helps you to determine if the visitors are using a mobile device and redirect them to the mobile-optimized version of your business website.
Tip 9 – Allow visitors to view your full website. Even though you have added all the mandatory information on your mobile website, some users may need the information you have chosen not to display. So, make sure that you include links on multiple web pages, which allow the users to return to the full version of your website.
As mobile websites are a completely new landscape for most business people, designing and developing mobile websites is definitely a challenging task. On the other hand, mobile websites also give you an excellent opportunity to showcase your brand and creativity.
Hence, keeping the user’s requirements on your mind, staying true to your brand and following the above mentioned tips will help you to build a good mobile website.