Do you know that 60% of global internet traffic comes from mobile users, and more than 56% of all eCommerce transactions are completed on mobile devices? Therefore, it is undeniable that mobile optimization should be prioritized by eCommerce businesses.
In this article, we will discuss mobile optimization and how Shopify brands could enhance mobile presence for better business performance.
Mobile Optimization for eCommerce
What is Mobile Optimization?
Mobile optimization refers to the process of designing and developing websites and other digital assets to be easily accessible and usable on mobile devices. This includes everything from page load speed to responsive design to mobile-friendly navigation.
With more than half of Internet traffic and transactions coming from mobile users, more businesses are designing their online platforms with a mobile audience in mind. As such, you should take mobile conversion optimization seriously.
Mobile Optimization and Mobile Conversion
In the real business world, a mobile-oriented development approach is not just focused on optimization but will lead to the further objective of mobile conversion.
Mobile conversion refers to the process of converting mobile visitors into customers. This involves optimizing the user experience on mobile devices to drive sales and revenue.
While mobile optimization and mobile conversion are related concepts, they are not the same thing. Mobile optimization is about making digital assets accessible and usable on mobile devices, and mobile conversion is about converting mobile visitors into customers. Normally, mobile conversions will be the achievement of successful mobile optimization.
Why Mobile Optimization Is Important
There are several reasons why mobile optimization is so important for eCommerce businesses:
- Mobile Usage is Increasing: More and more consumers are using mobile devices to browse and shop online. In fact, global mobile traffic has grown more than 7 times in the past decade.
- User Experience: According to Zippia, mobile users have different browsing habits and preferences than desktop users. They expect fast page load times, easy-to-use navigation, and a seamless user experience. Websites that are not optimized for mobile devices may not provide an optimal user experience, resulting in frustrated users who are less likely to convert into customers.
- SEO: Google's mobile-first indexing means that unoptimized websites for mobile devices are likely to see a decline in search engine rankings. This is because Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites in search results, so businesses that fail to optimize their websites for mobile devices risk being pushed down in search results.
- Brand Image: In today's digital age, businesses need to have a strong online presence to succeed. According to some published research, a website not optimized for mobile devices can reflect poorly on a business, making it appear outdated or unprofessional.
In other words, businesses that know how to prioritize mobile optimization will eventually get enhanced in business performance through more conversions and revenue.
The current condition of mobile optimization
At the moment, despite obvious mobile optimization’s essence, there are still lots of eCommerce website providers (developers) and owners who do not pay much attention to mobile optimization. As a result, their businesses fail to reach and convert visitors, which eventually get diminished in business performance through fewer customers and shrinking revenue.
In fact, in 2017, online retailer Toys "R" Us filed for bankruptcy after years of declining sales. One factor that contributed to the company's struggles was their failure to keep up with the shift towards mobile shopping.
According to a report from CNBC, Toys "R" Us had a clunky and slow-loading website that was not optimized for mobile devices. This made it difficult for mobile users to browse and purchase products on the site, leading to a loss of sales and customers.
This example highlights the importance of mobile optimization for eCommerce businesses, especially as more and more consumers shift towards shopping on mobile devices. Failing to provide a user-friendly and optimized experience on mobile can result in a loss of sales, customers, and ultimately, business performance.
What you need to optimize your mobile presence
Given the essence of mobile optimization, any eCommerce business should pay careful attention to improving its mobile presence.
So, what can eCommerce businesses do?
There are some general approaches to improve mobile optimization for an eCommerce website:
- Performance: One of the most important aspects of mobile optimization is website performance. Slow loading times can lead to frustrated users who are likely to abandon your site in search of a faster alternative. To improve website performance, you can compress images and videos, reduce the number of HTTP requests, and enable browser caching.
- Experience: Another key aspect of mobile optimization is user experience. A positive user experience is crucial for keeping users engaged and encouraging them to make a purchase. To optimize user experience on mobile devices, consider simplifying your website's navigation and using clear and concise labels for menus. Use large, easy-to-tap buttons and forms that are optimized for mobile devices. Avoid using pop-ups, which can be intrusive and difficult to close on mobile devices.
- Design: The design of your mobile website is also important for optimizing the user experience. Consider using a simple, minimalist design with plenty of white space to make your website easy to navigate and read on smaller screens. Use high-quality images and videos that are optimized for mobile devices, and use fonts and text sizes that are easy to read on smaller screens. Make sure that your website's design is consistent across all pages, and use visual cues like icons and buttons to help users understand how to interact with your site. Finally, make sure that your website's design is accessible to users with disabilities by including alt text for images and using clear, easy-to-read fonts.
Among the 3 above approaches, design optimization always faces challenges. Those challenges are more emphasized on websites that are powered by Shopify due to the customization limitations of this platform.
How to optimize your mobile design
Header First
One of the most critical elements of any site is the header, which creates the first impression for users and guides them through the rest of their website experience. Normally, the interface of the header between desktop and mobile will be automatically re-designed by using any Shopify theme or page builder. However, in some cases, you need more than that to create a best-fit header for your own eCommerce website.
To solve this problem, you can hire some website developers to code to your specifications, but it requires a long time and intensive efforts in marketer-developer collaboration.
Instead, there is a more efficient way to customize your mobile website’s header, which is to use a conversion-focused Shopify theme. After receiving positive reviews from customers, we’re proud to say that our theme Zest has been successful in doing that mission.
In case you have not been familiar with it, Zest is a conversion-focused Shopify theme that creates incredible shopping experiences and astonishing brand storytelling. It is designed to allow customers to optimize their mobile design efficiently.
Back to the header customization issue, Zest can help you here by letting you edit the header powerfully: choose a specific logo for mobile devices, arrange position and width, and show/hide header option icons.
Simplified Navigation Menu
Having a well-optimized navigation menu is an important step toward enhancing your online presence. However, mobile devices have smaller screens compared to desktops and laptops. Therefore, it is advisable to streamline your navigation menu and keep it short and easy to use.
A popular solution for mobile versions of websites is the use of a hamburger menu style. This style is designed to take up less space on the screen while making sure that menu items are big enough for users to select easily with their fingers.
Additionally, some mobile websites also provide another navigation menu designed for promoting desired actions of customers. It helps customers browse mobile websites smoothly and boost conversion rates for online store owners at the same time.
Zest understands those benefits and has provided a section named “Mobile Navigation Bar” which can be used effortlessly by adding and modifying blocks.
Responsive Design
Have you ever experienced difficulty viewing a website on your mobile device?
With the increasing number of devices and screen sizes available today, it's essential to have a website design that can adjust and function correctly on any device. This is where responsive web design comes in.
Responsive design means that your website will automatically adapt to fit the screen size and device of the user, providing a better browsing experience and improving your search engine optimization. Whether users switch their device orientation or alter their text size preferences, your website will still look and operate as it should. So, by adopting a responsive design approach, you can ensure that your website is accessible and user-friendly for everyone.
Mobile Sizes
When designing the desktop version of your site, there is a lot more freedom on where modules can go. But for mobile devices, there are limitations you may not have considered initially such as smaller screen size and narrower spacing.
Therefore, you should consider phone sizes when modifying the website’s elements to ensure that everything looks clear from the customers’ perspective. For example, you may need to reduce the size of the logo to fit with the header, you may also want to edit images to ensure compatibility.
Recently, although phone screens have been getting larger, which means you can fit more content on the page, it also further limits the user's reach on the screen.
Mobile Layout
Mobile layout is the visual structure your website displays to the user on a given screen. It is one of the most important factors that contribute to the success of mobile optimization. The mobile layout requires optimization due to mobile size issues. It is crucial to arrange website elements that fit each device's differentiated spaces and structures, particularly with mobile devices.
Modifying mobile layout can be a complicated task with lots of customized elements such as content (text), image, slideshow, etc…
However, Zest theme can help you out here by providing a “Mobile Layout” part in most theme sections, in which, you are allowed to customize some basic mobile presence including: enabling mobile swiping, setting related positions and alignments between content and image, etc.
Then, mobile visitors will gain a much better experience while browsing the online store, which is an important factor in their shopping decisions.
Wrapping up
With the dramatic increase in website traffic and eCommerce transactions coming from mobile devices, mobile optimization has become critical. It helps prevent risks of incompatible customer experiences and boost conversion related to more than half of visitors contemporarily.
Mobile optimization consists of many factors, in which website design is always an essential and difficult part for any website owners and developers. But if you are doing Shopify business, you can easily do mobile optimization by using a Shopify theme named Zest. It focuses deeply on mobile conversion features including mobile elements, mobile layout, …
With the continuous trend of mobile traffic, Zest will continue to be enhanced with the mobile-focused approach in mind. Therefore it could always empower Shopify merchants to convert successfully in the dynamic eCommerce environment.
Explore full features of Zest free today!
