If you want to boost your mobile conversions, you have to help your customers shop easier.

Everyone wants their online shopping experience to be straight-forward, quick and of course, easy. The more difficult and time consuming it is, the less likely a customer is to go through with a purchase.

Making a few changes to your WordPress website turns an awkward shopping experience into an incredible one. And remember, if your customers are happy, they’ll spread the word, leading to more new customers.

1. Use A Responsive Design

It should go without saying that you WordPress site should be responsive by now. A mobile friendly design is the first and most important step to help your customer shop easier on mobile devices. Imagine being a customer for a moment. Would you want to zoom in and out to see product details? What about scrolling side to side just to see the entire page? It’s frustrating.

A responsive design optimises your site to the screen size. You never know if someone’s using a tablet, phone or desktop. With this design, you’re always ready.

2. Improve Page Loading Times

Page loading times aren’t just important on desktops. Customers don’t have long attention spans and 57% of shoppers abandon sites if they don’t load within three seconds. With mobile now surpassing desktop, you can’t afford to let your slow loading mobile site send visitors to your competition. Reduce image sizes, clean up code, limit plugins and do anything else you can to speed up your site.

3. Include All Important Elements

If you really want to help your customers shop, include all the most important elements on your mobile site. It might sound obvious, but 21% of customers reported having to still go to the full site to shop, ask questions and complete transactions. Think about everything required to view products, contact support, view FAQs and make a purchase. Are all of these available easily on the mobile version of your site?

4. Think About UX

The user experience is critical on mobile. You want the design to be as easy to use as possible. When surveyed, 33% of customers said they had to zoom in just to read text and click in the right places. Even if text and images are large enough, what about your forms and navigation? Getting from product to checkout on mobile should be as easy as it is on desktop.

Another UX problem is entering information, such as contact details and payment information. Using WordPress plugins to ensure forms are easy to use and the right type of keyboard appears, such as numeric versus qwerty, drastically improves the overall experience.

5. Offer One-Click Call Support

Calls to businesses are expect to reach 73 billion by 2018 and that’s just from search alone. Customer support is key if you want to help your customers shop online. What if they have a question during the process? Filling out a contact form is cumbersome. Adding a one-click call button or link gives customers direct access to the support they need immediately.

6. Provide Mobile Payment Options

An overwhelming 56% of customers abandon their mobile shopping carts. While some of that is just a change of mind, part of it is difficult or security concerns during the checkout process. First, make the checkout process simple. The fewer steps, the better. Second, offer alternate payment options that don’t require the user to enter a credit card, especially as they may be shopping in public. Making it more convenient leads to more conversions.

7. Integrate More Images And Video

Mobile means limited real estate, so videos and images make it easier to explain products and services than pages of text. With 98% of millennials watching videos daily on their mobile devices, it’s easy to see that video on mobile is popular. Integrate it as part of your mobile site to make the most of the limited screen space. Quick videos also work well with the average customer’s limited attention span.

Bonus: Consider A Mobile App

Apps are becoming increasingly popular. If you want to give your customers an even easier way to shop on mobile, consider a mobile app. With an app, you could even offer location based discounts or use push notifications to encourage transactions.

Help Your Customers Shop From Anywhere

Mobile shopping continues to rise with the popularity of mobile devices. It’s easy and convenient. Help your customers shop wherever they are by ensuring your site is even easier to use than the desktop version. Optimise your site for mobile and it’ll work to drive conversions 24/7.

Does your WordPress site need a mobile makeover? Contact Darren today to ensure customers fall in love with your mobile website.

Image: Cristian Baron

Having a mobile-friendly site isn’t just good for your site’s visitors.

It’s now also highly preferred by Google and will even be used to rank your site. You now need a site that looks great on mobile devices to be competitive in search results.

Now is the time to ensure your site meets Google’s latest ranking criteria. Whether you choose a separate mobile design or a responsive site, incorporating mobile is a must.

Google’s Changes To Mobile Search

As of April 21, 2015, Google is changing how it displays search results to mobile users. The focus is on ensuring users only see mobile-friendly sites. Sites without a responsive or mobile design may not appear in the results. Google has already been using mobile-friendliness as a small part of their ranking criteria. Now, they’re expanding how they use it to deliver more relevant results to mobile users.

Takeaway: If you already have a mobile site, it might be time to check to ensure the site looks great on all screen sizes. If you don’t have a mobile site, hiring a developer could ensure you don’t disappear from mobile search results.

Mobile Results Matter

Mobile search results may not seem important until you fully understand how many potential site visitors rely mainly upon mobile devices to search for businesses, make purchases and find directions. During 2013, mobile traffic in the UK increased from 22.8% to 37%. This is only expected to continue to rise.

Recent statistics from early 2015 show 80% of users access the Internet via their smartphone. Tablets are being widely used as well with 47% of Internet searches coming from tablets. If you have an ecommerce site, mobile results are even more important. Mobile devices accounted for more online sales than desktops and laptops.

Takeaway: Optimise your site for mobile or you could be missing out on a large portion of Internet users. Your audience is just as likely to search for you on a smartphone or tablet as a desktop.

Mobile Affects Desktop Rank

Even if you don’t think you need a mobile-friendly version of your site, Google could penalise your desktop rank in the long term. Bounce rates are a major determining factor. If users try to visit your site on a mobile device and it’s not optimised for their device, they’ll go to another site. Eventually, this increases the bounce rate for your site and negatively affects your rank on all devices, desktops included.

Takeaway: Every site that wants to rank well needs to have a mobile or responsive design. Hiring a professional developer to optimise your site is an investment in the future performance of the site.

Better User Experience

If you take Google out of the picture, mobile optimised sites are still important. With many of your visitors coming from mobile devices of varying sizes, you want to ensure they have a good experience no matter what they’re viewing your site on. Visitors who visit a poorly designed desktop site usually move on the competition. Visitors trying to view a desktop only site on mobile do the same thing.

Takeaway: The user experience is just as important as Google’s search results. Use a developer to help design a site that’s ideal for your visitors on every device.

Meeting Google’s Standards

If you’re not sure if your site is mobile-friendly, you can check a few pages of your site using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool. All you have to do is enter a URL to be tested. Google will give you an analysis and let you know if anything is wrong. It’s also a good idea to have a professional developer test your site in-depth to ensure it’s mobile ready. They’ll be able to tweak any small issues that the Google tool might not notice.

Takeaway: Make a point of having your site tested or analysed as soon as possible. The sooner you’re ready for a mobile audience, the better you’ll rank in search.

Conclusion

Mobile accounts for a large portion of Internet usage. Ignoring the growing mobile trend could cost you visitors and rank position in Google. With new algorithm changes in place, it’s now more important than ever to go mobile-friendly.

Need to check your site or make the switch to a mobile-friendly design? Contact StuartMedia today to prepare your site for Google.

Image: Maria Elena