Partner Article

Five Ways to Convert more Mobile Device Users

According to recently published research by digital monitoring firm comScore, 1 out of 6 smartphone users in Europe?s five biggest markets (the so-called EU5, comprising the UK, France, Spain, Germany and Italy), now uses their mobile device to access retail websites. While some may just be ?window shopping? before purchasing an item on their desktop computer or in store, a significant 12.4% of smartphone users reported purchasing a product or service with their device. In the UK alone, 6.5million smartphone users reportedly access online retail content.

The research, which can be viewed from the link at the end of this article, demonstrates mobile users growing ease with using the mobile web to shop, while also showing that there is some way to go before smartphone retail really takes off. One thing is for sure ? the potential for sales via the mobile web is there, and businesses that actively do what they can to ease (and drive) users? passage from landing page to online checkout will ultimately fare better than those that do not. Here are a few quick tips for converting more smartphone users into paying customers.

Keep content pages snappy ? While it may be tempting to simply port your standard website copy across to your mobile site, this could potentially limit your conversion rate. Smartphone users have smaller screens and less time, so keep it snappy or risk losing them.

· Make navigation as simple as possible ? This applies to any website, but on the mobile web it?s even more important. Ensure that there can be no doubt about where the user should click to carry out any given action.

Keep load times low ? Many users, particularly those in rural areas, won?t always have a 3G connection, and even this is not as fast as home broadband. Don?t keep smartphone users waiting, or you may find that they desert your site. Optimise resolutions for mobile devices ? Don?t make users squint or scroll. An increasingly popular way of optimising resolutions for mobile is to use ?responsive web design?, which utilises media queries to display content at an appropriate resolution for the device in question. Streamline your checkout process ? Even if they?ve made it as far as the checkout stage, if you frustrate or impede smartphone users they may still go elsewhere, or else run out of time on their lunch break/ finish their bus journey.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jon Celeste .