More than half of internet traffic stems from mobile devices, and the number increases with each passing year. That fact alone means it is crucial to optimize mobile landing pages for conversions or face the prospect of alienating over half of your potential customers. Can you afford to forget about more than half of your traffic? No, we didn’t think so. This is why you must read, digest, and implement tactics and strategies for creating mobile landing pages that engage visitors and drive conversions.
Businesses must prioritize a mobile-first approach to their online presence or risk being left behind by rivals. Mobile devices influence how we access the internet and interact with brands. We use smartphones for almost every aspect of our daily lives, from paying bills via online banking to staying up to date with the latest news or checking what we are owed with a free online odds calculator. More importantly, tens of millions of smartphone owners use their devices to purchase online. Ensuring these visitors stay on the page and take the desired actions is essential to your business’ success.
Responsive Designs Are a Must
A responsive design is the foundation of every successful mobile landing page. Whether you use WordPress or any other of the many website-building platforms to power your website, it must be responsive; there is no compromise in this area.
Smartphones and other mobile devices come in various shapes, sizes, and screen resolutions, so ensuring your content displays correctly regardless of the device used to view it is imperative for capturing and retaining your audience.
Responsive themes and websites automatically change their layout based on the device used to view webpages. Tables, lists, images, and text change shape to fit perfectly on the mobile device’s screen. There is nothing worse for a mobile user than visiting a website that is not responsive and having your journey ruined by text that’s cut off, tables that require scrolling horizontally to view, and being unable to see buttons and calls-to-action (CTAs).
A well-designed, responsive mobile page encourages users to explore further and increases the likelihood of conversions.
Your Loading Speeds Matter
Today’s internet users expect instant gratification. Slow-loading pages not only lead to frustration but often lead to the user abandoning a website. Recent studies show almost half of customers expect a webpage to load in two seconds or less. Other studies reveal that e-commerce giant Amazon loses 1% of conversions for every 100 milliseconds added to page load times. The BBC loses 10% of its total users for every additional second it takes its page to load.
As if losing traffic, reduced conversion rates, and increased bounce rates were not punishment enough for having a slow-loading website, Google also penalizes websites without lightning-fast load times. That’s correct; you will drop down in search engine rankings if your page loading times are too slow. That, in turn, leads to reduced traffic, fewer conversions, and lower still ranking. It is an unwanted snowball effect.
Many strategies and steps to improve page load speeds exist, so many that we could dedicate a new article to them! For now, consider compressing any images through the Squoosh website, which vastly reduces the image’s file size without compromising quality. Also, reduce your use of Javascript or HTML-heavy items.
Capture Attention With Engaging Content
Mobile users often have shorter attention spans because they access the internet while on the move or lounging on their sofas at the end of a busy day. This means you have limited time to deliver your message concisely and compellingly.
Persuasive headlines come into their own when writing content you know mobile users will view. Write headlines that grab visitors by the scruff of the neck and compel them to continue reading. Once your headline has hooked them, set out your stall in the first paragraph so the user wants to continue reading. Ask them a question, consider being controversial in a statement, or promise to solve a problem. Those three tactics work wonders.
Sentence lengths should be shorter, and paragraphs should not be longer than three or four sentences. Why? Long paragraphs will display as “walls of text” on a mobile device, which is one of the primary reasons users click off a webpage.
Look at a webpage preview on a mobile device before you publish it to ensure it is readable on a smaller screen.
Strategic Placement of Calls-to-Action (CTAs)
Calls-to-Action, or CTAs as you budding online entrepreneurs abbreviate them, are vitally important on all web pages, but their placement on mobile landing pages requires careful consideration.
Use contrasting colors to make the CTAs stand out from the rest of your text, and employ actionable language to prompt users to take action.
The optimal placement of CTAs is near the top of the page and at the end of compelling content sections. Try to make them within easy thumb reach because most mobile users hold their phone in one hand; make their lives easier and the actions more natural, and they are more likely to press the CTA!
Conclusion
Optimizing your mobile landing pages for conversions is a critical aspect of ensuring the success of your online presence. With over half of the internet traffic stemming from mobile devices, neglecting this segment is bordering on criminal because you risk alienating a significant portion of your potential customers.
You can lay solid foundations by ensuring your website has a responsive design that alters how webpages display on the myriad of devices people use to access your website. Improving page loading speed not only improves user experience and makes conversions more likely but will also see you appear higher up search engine results.
Crafting engaging content with strategically placed CTAs is the final step. Always write articles and create other content with the mobile user at the forefront of your thinking. Shorter sentences and paragraphs help keep distracted visitors engaged. Embracing these simple yet effective tactics will position your business to thrive in the current mobile-driven landscape.