People love the convenience of smartphones. They’re compact enough to store safely inside a pocket, yet powerful enough to grant us instant access to the entire cornucopia of human knowledge.
That isn’t to say the older desktop and newer laptop counterparts aren’t useful for specific activities. Quite the contrary, but neither of those two connected devices is as seamless as your iPhone while you’re strolling down another nameless retail aisle. As of a couple years ago, more users are now checking the web with mobile devices like their phones instead of desktop computers. Here’s why it’s important to focus on mobile optimization for your website.
Changing markets
The driving trend towards mobile usage holds major implications for businesses everywhere, because the linked consumer behavior often rejects conventional marketing tactics. That point was emphasized by the Harvard Business School professor, Thales Teixeira, in an article published on Think with Google: “As the volume of content has exploded in the past few years, consumer behavior changed drastically, and the advertising industry failed to adapt. Today the attention paid to ads is not equal across screens and mediums, but advertisers aren’t accounting for that properly.” The blame can be placed squarely on outdated but ingrained mentalities.
Few leaders deliberately undermine business success, but it happens nevertheless. While risk and uncertainty will always present us with unexpected challenges, some pitfalls are can be prevented with prudent planning. When it comes to mobile optimization, there are countless possible choices, but they can all be simplified into a small number of factors. That would include everything from multimedia availability and text visibility to content loading speeds and software compatibilities. Why reinvent the wheel when we can depend on experts like him to highlight the most relevant best practices?
Importance of search engines
Guaranteeing a consistently fast loading speed is frequently cited as first and foremost when it comes to the mobile user experience, but its benefits don’t stop there. And mobile optimization has a direct impact on Google’s search engine results. You’ll need to optimize images, minify code, leverage browser caching, and reduce redirects, according to Moz. If it sounds highly technical, that’s because it really is.
Fortunately, we aren’t all alone when it comes to figuring this stuff out. Technologists and developers from around the globe have already united to address the issue. and accelerated mobile pages (AMP) are the answer. Even better is the fact that AMP was developed entirely open-source, which means anyone and everyone has access. The group responsible for designing AMP maintain a public resource explaining how it works. Readers are likely to find the opening video easier to understand that the long form exposition, but either does an adequate job describing the technology.
The most competitive businesses have probably implemented AMP or they’re actively experimenting with it. Many of them tap into external tools to aid their progress. Developers can, for instance, rely on an AMP validator to retroactively verify whether or not a specific page is AMP compliant. It’s also possible to forge partnerships with specialized SEO agencies capable of informing the effort. Collaborating with experts requires more resources, but might help the totally inexperienced avoid making mistakes.
Suffice it to say that mobility really does matter, now more than ever. Speed comes second since it makes a huge difference from both the user experience perspective and the SEO standpoint. Taking steps toward improving them should be a top priority for decision-makers. Ignoring them is simply a recipe for disaster.