Last year Google announced that more people use cell phones to search on Google than they do on desktop & tablets. Such is the case in 10 countries, including the United States & Japan. This doesn’t mean that companies should discontinue efforts on desktop websites. Companies that don’t already have a mobile version of their website, should create one as soon as possible. Those that do have one, need to optimize their mobile site for easier mobile customer consumption. Whether you have a mobile website or are in the process of putting one together, follow these tips to ensure your mobile customer experience is the best that it can be!
Enhance Your Images
If you are selling a product or food, high quality images are a must! If at all possible, do not use the stock images that everyone else is using. Either invest in an image service or take some photos of your own with a good camera.
File Name – When you save or upload the image, it looks better to name the photo after what it is, not just a bunch of numbers or letters i.e. mashedpotatoes.png vs. DS_98789f9f_7d98f7dffhfhf.png
Title & Alt Text – Be sure to add a title and alt text to each image you upload! Titles and alt text describe the image to search engines so that they may show them in image search results. Be focused and descriptive when writing them!
Caption – Captions describe the image to humans much like alt text describes the image to search engines. Don’t let your readers guess as to what is in the picture, let them know exactly what they are looking at!
Content
Reading large paragraphs on a mobile device can be difficult. Higher amounts of written content work better on desktop websites. Write your paragraphs short, attention grabbing, & right to the point. Focus on presenting your main goals such as getting your customer to order your products, or enlisting your services.
Reviews
More and more people rely on each other’s reviews before buying a product or signing up for a service. They want to know how many overall stars your company has on major review sites such as Yelp, Angie’s List, & Google. They also want to know all about the exact product or service they are thinking about investing in. Encourage your customers to leave reviews about the particular product or service they purchased, and invite them to post their own photos with each review!
Local Content
Google has reported that since 2011, “near me” searches have increased 34-fold. People search for goods and services using search queries such as “pizza near me” or “roofer near me”. In order to capture this audience, include these phrases into the h1 tags, page titles, & descriptions of the contact & directions pages of your website. Also make sure that your business name, phone number, and address are easily visible above the fold on your website. If you have multiple locations, create separate pages for them on local listing websites.