With an increasing number of online shoppers making purchases on their mobile devices, it’s more important than ever to be able to reach them however they come to your eCommerce site.
But how can you know if you business is mobile ready?
Some questions to ask yourself are: When people come to your website on their smartphones, what is their experience like? Is the mobile version of your site encouraging conversions? Or is its poor design losing you prospects? To help you answer these questions, pull out your smartphone, navigate to your website, and check to see if it hits all the points below!
Speedy page loads
When online shoppers come to your site via mobile devices, you can expect them to have short attention spans. Which is exactly why they won't want to wait for slow-loading pages!
If your site doesn’t load within a few seconds, you can bet you’re losing them.
To test your own site's load speed, you can use an online tool such as Pingdom or GTmetrix.
Simple navigation
While your business’ desktop experience may include a navigation menu with multiple categories, the mobile version needs to be simplified.
Take a look at your website on a mobile device: Can you read the navigation menu? Is it easy to click and use?
If not, consider reworking the navigation into a dropdown menu in the mobile version of your site. This way the menu doesn’t clutter the user experience on a smaller smartphone screen, but it’s still easy to get to important information (like the image below). 
Here's a handy guide to get you started.
Shorter, larger, prioritized text
Your text-heavy website may look great on a desktop, but it's likely unreadable and clunky on a mobile device.
That’s exactly why the mobile version of your site needs to prioritize the most important content. Look at your site; Does the homepage have lengthy paragraphs of text, for example? Make sure to remove most of this in the mobile version.
Opt instead for prioritized content set in a large, easy-to-read format. For an in-depth look at best practices for mobile content, read this article from the Nielsen Norman Group.
Mobile-optimized images
If you’re going to convince visitors to buy, you have to make it easy for them to see exactly what you’re offering.
How? In the mobile version of your site, all images need to be high-resolution, cropped, and resized for the mobile screen.
Likewise, make sure you upload photos that are compressed as much as possible while still retaining quality.
Free tools such as JPEG-Optimizer and Optimizilla can help you shrink image file sizes without sacrificing aesthetics, and apps are readily available on most eCommerce platforms to help with product images as well.
Clear, visible calls to action
If you want high conversion rates, you have to make calls-to-purchase compelling and convenient.
To make them click-worthy, use language that makes it hard for visitors to say no, and make purchases simple, one-click options on your mobile site.
For some extra tips, check out this article about how our CRO team improved cart page conversions by 26%.
Quick checkouts
The faster and simpler you make the mobile checkout process, the more likely visitors are to buy from you.
Essentially, you want to eliminate any obstacles to them completing their purchases, like offering guest checkouts.
Allow guest checkout (then follow up with an email to allow them to easily create an account after their order).
According to this study by Baymard, it's the number two reason for cart abandonment during the checkout process, and you can always get customers to create an account by sending a follow up email after they complete their order.
Skip flash and popups
Part of designing a strong mobile experience involves what you leave out, too.
Skip flash sites, which updated iPhones and Androids don’t support. Likewise, avoid popup ads and signup forms, all of which can turn visitors away.
Is your business mobile-ready?
In today’s on-the-go world of online shopping, your business can’t afford to ignore the mobile market.
And while rethinking your site may seem like extra work, there’s good news, too: Mobile customers tend to be easier to convert than desktop visitors... especially when you make it easy for them!
If you want to read more from Shanna, you can read more on the Straight North website by clicking here.
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