#1: Simplicity is the key
The major rule of thumb you must consider when optimising a website for mobile devices is to keep file sizes as low as possible. Nobody likes waiting around for anything and this includes a website loading up on a mobile. Identify the main pieces of information your visitors will probably be searching for.#2 Mobile searches usually contain fewer Keywords/Phrases
There is a lot of information on the web that claims that searches made on a mobile device tend to use less keywords than that of a individual on a desktop computer. Keypads on mobile devices are getting better but they can still be awkward to use when typing out long pieces of text, this is a key factor why the majority of search queries tend to be shorter. Aim to rank well in shorter search queries and watch your website traffic increase.#3 Avoid Flash and Java
Unless you are considering optimising your website for each mobile phone, we would suggest you stay away from flash and java. The obvious reason for avoiding Flash is that Apple products do not support Flash and if you are using Air or Flash Lite remember to check the file size. Leading away from Apple and their 40% market share in the UK there is still a large percentage of mobile devices that do not support Java, and even if they do, using Java can be a huge drag on load time.#4 Comply with Mobile Standards
Search engines like Google will love that you are promoting your website by optimising it for Mobile but what will mark you down is if your mobile website is not following mobile standards. Of course you want your mobile website indexed by search engines but by not following the mobile guidelines your mobile site may be transcoded by the search engine and the results are not always that aesthetically pleasing.#5 Make full use of Meta tags
Remember that your potential visitors will be may be searching for your website rather than coming to your site directly. Make full use of the Meta tags to give your mobile website and chance in climbing up the search engine rankings. Unique content is a major plus for search engines so think carefully about what content you are going to use in your mobile website.#6 Promote Your Mobile-Friendly Site
Once your mobile website is ready to go live remember to promote it everywhere, submit your mobile website to any and all search engines, mobile portals and directories. Even though Google processes around 97% of all mobile searches in the UK, there are still around 250,000 people that choose to search for a website on their mobile elsewhere. This may seem like a small percentage but is it really worth forgetting about ¼ of a million people in the UK alone? QR codes are also a great idea of gaining more access to your mobile website.#7: Use Mobile Redirects
Your website is optimised for mobile great but have you used mobile redirects to tell the mobile browser which webpage to load. Forgetting to do this simple step is like wasting all the time you have spent on designing and developing your mobile website. Do yourself and your visitors a favour and put a mobile redirect in your site. There are many ways to do this and you can even send different phones to different pages. The example below uses JavaScript and links iPhones and iPods to http://your-website-goes-here/iphone.html:<script language=javascript>
<!--
if ((navigator.userAgent.match(/iPhone/i)) || (navigator.userAgent.match(/iPod/i))) { location.replace("http://your-website-goes-here/iphone.html");
}
-->
</script>
#8: Use Your Branding and Corporate Identity
Even though your mobile site is a slimmed down version of your standard website you still want to combine the same branding elements. This is vital because users will know they have got the right website even before reading the content and also enables you to build on your branding identity.Using the same colour palette and branding imagery between your mobile site and your standard site will result in users that are familiar with your standard site and your mobile site and therefore create an increased user-friendly experience.
#9: Utilize White Space
Current web design trends of 2012 seem to be based around a clean looking website with lots of website space. Remember as mentioned earlier simplicity is the key. Only write content that is absolutely crucial for mobile users. That little bit of text you have put into your standard site to fill up some space is not needed on your mobile version. Try to keep the number of pages as minimal as possible and remember websites load slower on a mobile than they do on a desktop computer or laptop, think about your visitors data allowances and make the page file sizes as low as possible.#10 Test Your Site on Mobile Devices
This may seem like a silly tip but please test your website on mobile devices. Having errors on your mobile website is unacceptable and can influence people to leave your site and may even damage your standard website hits. We understand that like most people you will not have a bundle of every phone that can connect to the internet so instead try your mobile site out on emulators such as Adobe BrowserLab.You may also be interest to know what the top 10 most used mobile phones in the UK (according to USwitch) are, if so click here
That’s it for our Top 10 Tips to optimise your website for mobile devices. Your comments are greatly appreciated and always welcome, tell us what you thought of this post and if these tips helped you in your pursuit of optimising your website for mobile devices.
