Mobile sites are designed for the small screen, with the needs of mobile users in mind. A mobile-friendly site can help your business connect with customers and increase sales, but a bad mobile experience can drive your customers to your competition.*
*Sources: Compuware, “What Users Want from Mobile,” 2011
Sources: Gartner, 2010; Google Mobile Optimization Webinar, 2011; Cisco, 2011
Sources: Compuware, “What Users Want from Mobile,” 2011
Sources: Compuware, “What Users Want from Mobile,” 2011
Sources: Google “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users,” 2011
Sources: Adobe Systems “Adobe Mobile Experience Survey,” 2011; eMarketer, 2011
Sources: Lightspeed Research; Google “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users,” 2011
Keep it Quick
Mobile users are often short on time, squeezing in online tasks as they go about their day. To help them, design your site to load fast and make copy easy to read.
Make it Easy to Convert
No matter what your site’s objective is, your customers need to be able to do it with a virtual keyboard and no mouse. Make it easy to buy something or contact you!
Simplify Navigation
No one likes to be confused. Clear navigation and, on large or complex sites, search functionality, will help your customers easily find what they need.
Make it Local
Consumers look for local info on their phones all the time—from locating the nearest gas station to finding an open pizza place. Include functionality that helps people find and get to you.
Be Thumb-Friendly
People use their fingers to operate mobile devices – especially their thumbs. Design your site so even large hands can easily interact with it.
Make it Seamless
People now use multiple screens throughout the day. Convert as much of the functionality of your desktop site to mobile as you can to create a seamless experience.
Design for Visibility
A mobile-friendly site gets its message across without causing eyestrain. Make it easy for your customers to read – remember they may be in a place with low light.
Use Mobile Site Redirects
A mobile site redirect is code that can automatically tell if visitors are using a mobile device and send them to the mobile-friendly version of your site. Have your site developer implement this redirect code so your customers get the best version of your site for their needs.
Make it Accessible
Ideally, your mobile site should work across all mobile devices and all handset orientations.
Listen, Learn and Iterate
Good mobile sites are user-centric, which means they’re built with input from your audience. Ask your desktop site users what they want in a mobile website and make testing and optimisation an ongoing process.
A subsidiary of Ticketmaster, TicketsNow is a resale marketplace where fans buy and sell event tickets. When research revealed that more than 25% of ticketing-related web searches occur on mobile devices, they knew they needed to transform www.ticketsnow.com into a better experience for their mobile users.
We wanted to improve the customer experience by enabling intuitive ticket ordering in the fewest possible steps.
-Sachin Gadhvi, Director of Search and Mobile Marketing
At first TicketsNow considered building a mobile app, but soon realized it that a mobile site was a better choice for them: it would work on all platforms and be easier to update. The new mobile site concentrates on making ticket and event information accessible and purchases a breeze. Simple, direct navigation helps users quickly find events that interest them and prominent search functionality makes it easy for customers who know exactly what they want to zero in. Ticket listings can be sorted by price, seat location and number available to further help filter results. Once a customer is ready to buy, a streamlined checkout process keeps purchases stress-free.
In the first month after TicketsNow launched the mobile site, average order values from mobile devices increased 8%, conversion rate grew by a sustained 50% and sales grew by 100%. The mobile site also increased return on ad spend by 30%. With a successful mobile site and mobile-targeted AdWords campaign under their belt, TicketsNow has found a winning-formula that works for them—and their customers.
Insurance Auto Auctions, Inc., (IAAI) is one of the nation’s largest vehicle buyer and auctioneer. The company uses cars.iaai.com to connect with vehicle owners interested in selling. Says Joe Sieger, IAAI’s Vice President of Product Development, “When someone wants to sell their car, that person is probably sitting in their car or near their car, so if we can catch them on their mobile device, we can close the deal then and there.”
The results have been amazing — less than a year in, mobile generates about 20% of all conversions.
-Joe Sieger, VP of Product Development
The IAAI mobile site concentrates on content that drives fast conversions: location info, the online price guide, and strong calls to action. Anonymous price quotes and a photo guide to vehicle conditions have increased conversion rates dramatically. Simplified navigation and forms make it easy for customers to get in touch. “The mobile site is about contacting us quickly. We know we only have a few minutes of their time,” Sieger notes.
The new site launched along with a mobile-targeted AdWords campaign. Both site and campaign have undergone constant optimization since, as the team learned and refined accordingly. The results have been amazing — less than a year in, mobile generates about 20% of all conversions. Now, the team is considering location-specific mobile landing pages for a geo-targeted mobile campaign.
Ryland Homes is one of America’s top five new-home builders. The company relies heavily on sales and marketing efforts to engage prospects early on in the decision-making process. With a steady increase in mobile traffic to www.ryland.com, the company needed to better support and engage its growing base of on-the-go prospects.
We got really excited about having a sale that originated from the mobile site. It’s early-on proof that the mobile site is really working for us.
-Diane Morrison, VP Sales & Marketing
Ryland’s mobile site launched in March 2011, and delivers information with minimal clicks. Consistent colors and button styles for each content type speed navigation, as does the site’s compact, vertical-scrolling design. Clickable phone numbers, location-based driving directions and fast online registration spark leads and conversions. Plus, mobile site redirects ensure that a user always sees the best version of the site for his or her device. “It just adapts to the device that the customer is viewing it on,” says Jason Grovert, Ryland Homes’ Chief Technology Officer. “It just works for them.”
Ryland has continued to improve on the site and is planning additional features: more floor plans, forward-to-a-friend functionality and info about events, promotions and awards. A locally targeted, mobile-only Google AdWords campaign drives site traffic, which is booming. Mobile registrations are up 300% and mobile conversions cost about 30% less. Best of all, Ryland has now seen home sales that began as mobile leads.
Baby Gaga is a popular online source of educational materials and social support for pregnant women and parents of young children. Mobile usage had grown to about 40% of total visits to baby-gaga.com but mobile users viewed fewer pages and spent less time on the site than desktop users. “It was pretty clear that we weren’t giving the mobile user what they needed,” said CEO Nicolas Halper.
It’s pretty essential that we know how to do mobile, because mobile is going to be a part of everything we do going forward.
-Nicolas Halper, CEO, Baby-Gaga.com
As a test, Halper and his team decided to mobilize just a high-traffic portion of their site: pregnancy.baby-gaga.com. It took about seven months from ideation to launch for them to create the new, mobile-friendly site. They also implemented Google AdSense for Mobile to monetize the site, helping cover the cost of the build.
Two weeks post launch, the company realized a 64% increase in mobile visits without any decrease in its desktop traffic. Unique visitors went up 104% and mobile page views rose 82%. The improved user experience prompted greater engagement and revenue per user, leading to a 50% increase in revenue from mobile. Next, Halper plans to mobilize other parts of the Baby Gaga site and create mobile-specific experiences such as smartphone apps and location-based solutions.
