7 Mistakes You Should Avoid While Developing a Mobile Website
Why is having a mobile-friendly site critical to your business’ success or failure?
We have officially transitioned to the “Mobilegeddon” era as there are now more mobile devices than there are people in the world.
We saw this coming. A few years back, digital marketing advocates could not stress enough the need for a responsive website as mobile use seems to be dramatically increasing – and fast. In fact, mobile use has grown nearly 400% in the last four years.
Undeniably, having a website means having a mobile version as they go hand in hand. Why? Because it makes browsing the internet more seamless. It provides an excellent and convenient experience for users. Happy users mean returning users.
How do you get started? First, be aware of the common mistakes when planning to develop your mobile-friendly site:
- Poor User Experience – Having a beautiful website is meaningless if you do not ensure user experience first and foremost. Remember that your site needs to be interactive and intuitive. This means that you need to consider the ergonomics of mobile. It might seem trivial, but you need to keep the thumb in mind. It also helps greatly to look up the UX and UI tips prior to planning your website’s wireframes. Regarding colors to use, avoid black backgrounds and yellow text. These colors may appear unappealing on your mobile site. What’s the use of having a beautiful website if no one is around to see it?
- Missing the Pre-Launch Campaign – One of the common mistakes that businesses do is that they take for granted the most important factor to their success – fanfare. Prior to launch, a business needs to conduct extensive market research, including getting feedback. The main reason why businesses fail is because they have not thoroughly researched their market vis-à-vis their product/services. Everything must be carefully planned, from the market teaser to the post-implementation actions. This way, you have already set the stage prior to launch and you can simply catapult your website stats.
- Overwhelming Features – The common notion is that the more features you have on your site, the more sellable it becomes. This is not entirely the case, in fact, this can rather be counterproductive as it may confuse users. They may opt to go to another site with fewer features. It is important that you know who your market is — specifically what they want/need. From there, you can effectively build your “minimum viable product” website. Even if your site comes with minimal features, it will still be desirable and attractive as long as it targets your exact market.
- Painfully Slow Loading – This usually happens when you have a lot of features and elements on your site. The elements become too heavy for the site to load the site quickly and will, in effect, turn off users and may just opt to leave. Remember that people on their mobile phones are mostly on the move, and do not want, nor have the time, to wait longer just to get to a website. One tip is to get your full website to load within 2-3 seconds, otherwise, you may be losing potential visitors. This is also the time when the responsive nature of your site should be carefully examined – one example is image resizing, are your images resized for quicker loading? Incorrect definition of the quality or size of the images can slow the load times considerably on both desktops and mobile devices.
- Device Prioritization vs Screen – Unknown to many, there are various types of mobile phone screens — micro, small, mid-range, etc. Most developers make the mistake of focusing more on the device model rather than the device’s screen. It is important that you make your website cross-platform ready to ensure a good user experience regardless of what device is being used.
- Taking Social Media Integration for Granted – The pinnacle of the mobile era is social media. In fact, this may be the reason why mobile is highly used in the first place. People want information at lightning speed and they get it from social media. It is important that you have already integrated your site with social media, especially those that require log-ins. Busy people tend to easily forget their passwords, logging in with your social media account addresses this problem. This is also important in the virality sector, as social sharing has become more popular over the years. The ability to become famous in a matter of minutes has become more achievable.
- Ignoring Analytics – Or any tracking tool for that matter. Having a data-driven strategy is what will set you apart from any other mobile website. This goes in tandem with market research. It is important that every move you make is based on what the data says. This is where you can analyze your performance and adjust it to achieve your objectives.
In a nutshell, creating a mobile-friendly site is not a walk in the park. There is no button that says “click me” and will make it instantly all mobile-ready. This requires a lot of work and consideration, but once you are able to meet all these considerations, you are guaranteed a much more successful site than you have ever imagined.
