WEBSITE SPEED ON MOBILE DEVICES
More often than not, we have found ourselves in instances which we are searching for something on websites and some roadblocks show up. Sometimes we find ourselves in sites which take forever to load and it becomes almost impossible to find what we are looking for. Most of us end our search at that particular point after growing impatient. This is a very familiar situation which impacts different brands and products differently.
In the retailing process, we have seen that a second’s delay can impact conversion by up to 20%. This means that quite a number of companies are missing out on conversions which are easy. However, there are quick fixes that can help one optimize the experience they are having with their mobile.
Optimizing Mobile Site Speed
We have listed some of the unique measures you can take that will positively impact your speed.
- Beware of the speed of your mobile site- Test My Site is a free tool which can be used to check where your site stands. The tool assesses the mobile performance of your website and it also gives you solutions that can help increase the speed. In addition, it will give you information on your site speed in comparison to that of your competitor and how that will have an influence on the potential revenue of your company.
- Lower page weight- most of the sites that we looked at during our research were heavy for mobiles. One thing you should always keep in mind is that you should not expect your user to download so much data and wait for some time for the site to load. 1000 KB is the highest page weight any site should have.
- Get rid of image carousels- when your customers start to scroll, the first thing most of them will see is the first image in your carrousel. To reduce your page weight, you have to get rid of image carousels.
- Optimization- let your users feel welcomed at your site by including a search box just below your mobile site. Auto correction is also an optimization that your site should have for the searches.
- Speed- the check-out process should be as fast as possible. Most of the brands are making checking out to be a long process. Remind customers how their first purchase was or by including services like Payoneer or Google pay in your site. Payment should be done only by tapping a few icons.
How Did This Approach Help?
A company that deals in junk removal in North America and Australia was in the quest for improving its mobile booking process. They decided to reduce their page weight, they left out forms to be filled by users and also made the calendar booking system much easier for mobile users. These few approaches saw them achieve excellent feedback in a very short period of time.
The Aftermath of Optimization
The company used these measures for around 28 days in November 2018 and their mobile sessions rose by 19% after each consecutive year, the entries in its mobile online booking engine also rose by 13%, their page-load time dropped by 28% and the bounce rate too dropped by 4%. The vice president of the company, Geoff Henshaw, said that they make their process of junk removal to be exceptional through their mobile experience.
Mobile Design and Accessibility
Mobiles have helped people a lot in finding things out. However, for people to achieve this, you have to make experiences that are just for mobile. Desktops and mobiles are pretty similar to each other, but creating a site that is responsive for both platforms is a temporary fix. Each platform should be built for providing people with the experiences they expect without paying attention to the platform on which they are seeking information from.
You have to keep in mind the role of a mobile in a customer and the experience it offers them. The solutions to your mobile experiences are all out there and they are not overwhelming to implement. When you create an action plan and do monitoring of your mobile site speed from time to time, you will have a very smooth mobile experience.