Optimising Your Mobile Website

So you're taking the plunge. You know that mobile is here to stay, and you want to make sure you get it right first time around.

Here are some key considerations that are an absolute must:

Easy Access: Automatically direct mobile users to the mobile version of your website. They may not have the patience to trawl your full website for the "mobile website" link - particularly after they've waited for seconds on end for it to load, and the competition will be waiting readily with open arms.

Linear Layouts: Minimize left/right navigation (which is difficult on mobile devices) and

instead arrange your content in a single column layout.

Size Matters: Keep pages small - around 10KB - and minimise use imagery and tables. If you do need to incorporate tables, use no more than 2 columns, and avoid row and column merging.

It's Not All About You: Your target audience is using your mobile website because they are on the go. Make sure navigation is intuitive, and users can access what they need in one or two clicks. Spare them the lengthy marketing messages to deliver a truly relevant, positive online experience and they'll be back again and again.

Stay Connected: Make sure that all pages are linked to other pages. It's difficult to get around on a mobile phone, try not to make it harder by forcing users to hit the back button to escape dead ends.

Be Seen: Use Google Sitemaps to post information about the structure of your website. It's harder for search engines to discover sites on the mobile web. You can speed up the process by proactively informing Google of the pages on your site that need to be indexed.

Go One Step Further: Use valid mobile markup (syntax and vocabulary will differ from what can be used for full websites) and validate that your page conforms to the markup standard you have chosen. Mobile-specific validators like http://ready.mobi/go beyond simple validation and identify areas where your page design departs from generally accepted practices, estimates download times and cost, and more.

Testing 1,2,3: Test, test and test again. Then repeat. There are a number of web tools out there to help - Apple have an iPhone simulator and Opera have a mobile or "small screen" option.

If you're interested in learning more, give us a call on 1300 780 566. In the meantime, congratulations on making the move, and good luck!