Have you checked if your website is mobile optimized ? Did you hear about Google’s new Mobile-First policy? Nowadays, more and more web users ditch their desktops in favor of browsing and shopping from their mobile devices. If a potential consumer views your website from their phone and finds it a mess, they are likely to leave immediately and look elsewhere for their needs, often going straight to your competitors.
Hence, it’s essential to provide a mobile-first experience for your website. Performance is one of the most important aspects of a mobile-friendly website, i.e. how fast information loads and how easily users perform functions. In another way, mobile-first means that you design and optimize your content first for mobile users.
Responsive web design enables the creation of sites that function equally well on all platforms. However, responsive design is only a small part of mobile UX optimization strategies. If you truly want to optimize your performance, you’ll need to explore other options.
But, this post is not about creating a whole new website. Instead, we’ll look at some basic mobile-first design ideas. Also, pay some attention to technical details to improve the user experience for your mobile users.
Before We Begin- Let’s understand more about a Mobile-Friendly Website.
Consider yourself a potential consumer and use your phone to access your website. How long does your website take to load? Is it easy to locate what you’re looking for?
When someone views your website on a mobile device, they want immediate responses. The users would like to gather sufficient information about your company to decide whether or not to explore it further. The user’s experiences on your site will strongly influence their opinion about your company and their chances of becoming a client.
One of the essential features of web development is concentrating on simple navigation that connects users to what they’re looking for. Let’s have a look at some of the features that go into creating a successful mobile website:
Tips to Optimise Your Website for Mobile Devices:
1. Develop a Mobile-friendly Layout:
Websites develop on the concept of serving desktop users. But, smartphones and other mobile devices are here to stay, so you must start embracing the idea of mobile-first design.
Which other design features should you include in your mobile-first web layouts other than a responsive design?
● Screen Space:
Mobile devices have a restricted amount of screen space. Furthermore, mobile screens display information vertically, unlike desktop screens, having a considerably larger, horizontal format. So, you must priorities this screen space in the design process. Which elements should consumers pay special attention to? How easy is it for a smartphone user to view CTA buttons, if there are any?
● Provide Readable and Accessible Content:
Mobile design allows you to add unique features, but not the same way the desktop designs do. Hence, content should come first. Keep your texts and other content parts simple to read and understand. Confusing graphic features may be less accommodating on a mobile screen.
● Easy Navigation:
You can’t just press anywhere on a mobile device to return to the homepage. Unless, of course, you prepare ahead of time for this type of navigation. Ask your hired web design company to use Scroll-to-Top buttons and smooth sticky headers whenever possible for easy navigation.
The best technique to see if you’re doing everything in a correct manner is to view your website using your phone. Observe how things look and move together in detail.
2. Resource Management- Graphics, Logo, Etc:
How frequently do you use images for personal reasons rather than UX? It does happen, and it becomes essential to know how media optimization works if you want a unique and creative website design in Melbourne.
Visual components such as images, graphics, symbols, and videos consume the most bandwidth on web pages.
While there is no set web page size that everyone must adhere to, it is pretty apparent that smaller web page sizes result in faster-loading speed.
So, how can you reduce the size of your visual data by a few KBs or even MBs?
● Adjust Image Size:
Sounds easy, right? We can’t tell you how many times the users have gone to a mobile site only to see 1980 x 1200 graphics loading in the background. Instead, you should provide full-size images as alternate links when necessary.
Resizing can save up to 80% of the overall image size based on the dimension requirements. However, there’s no reason to go higher than 600-700px for mobile devices.
● Decrease File Size with Compression:
Image compression/optimization reduces the number of colors in an image using third-party software. You can perform image compression to the extent that your photographs retain their inherent quality while significantly reducing the file size. Consider hiring a web design service provider in Melbourne who ensures using the best compression tools to reduce the image size.
● Delete and Replace a Few Background Images:
You don’t have to repeat the same graphic components on your mobile designs if you follow the idea of intuitive mobile design. Removing a few pictures and substituting them with color backgrounds on mobile devices will not affect the user experience. Always look for ways to preserve bandwidth, even if it’s a small amount.
3. Pre-Loading:
Is it important to transfer all the media resources to pages that take a long time to read? Is it also possible to generate external pages before people access them?
Freeloaders, commonly referred to as browser hints, are methods that help the page inform the browser about possible navigation options. For example, a user might go from Page A to Page B.
Thanks to pre-loading, the user can now view Page B before pressing the navigation link on Page A.
Remember, pre-loading doesn’t always work, and the browser has the power to decide where they evaluate individual factors such as device type and bandwidth.
Moreover, you can pre-load items like Google Fonts or construct a custom script for pre-loading JavaScript resources in WordPress as pre-loaders use dynamic HTML tags.
4. Lazy Loading:
The browser fetches the entire page content whenever users visit a new web page, whether a blog post or a site and then presents it as a native surfing interface. Most of the time, the users have to download the entire page before viewing anything beyond.
On the other hand, lazy loading directs the browser to load (render) content only visible within the user’s screen. As a result, if a page contains size-sensitive photographs or videos, those files will only appear when your mobile screen reaches that section of the site.
Final Thoughts:
It isn’t complex to optimize your website for an excellent mobile experience and all you need is a little determination and a willingness to follow the steps mentioned above. You’ve probably heard of content caching and slow loading, but have you heard of staged platforms or pre-loaders?
Hopefully, this blog sheds some light on the current state of mobile website optimization.
Are you looking for reliable web designers to optimize your website’s mobile performance? Head over to our site. We focus our services on assisting your brand in gaining recognition and establishing a presence among a larger audience so that you get acknowledged for all of your hard work.
