Mobile devices have been exceeding desktop searches globally for the past two years. It’s not new news and it shouldn’t come as a shock to any website owner. The number of mobile searches continues to grow but there hasn’t been an official update regarding numbers for quite some time. At a recent press event, a Google speaker confirmed that mobile is now the tool that is used by the vast majority of people, but this wasn’t confirmed at the time.
Third parties are providing information via their own research. BrightEdge’s research has revealed that 57% of all traffic online is performed on a mobile or a tablet. You can register to download the full report here. BrightEdge discovered that there are a few categories where the amount of online traffic was significantly higher than the 54%, this included restaurants. Additionally, the younger audiences were also using mobile and tablet far more than the 54%.
Content Creation for Mobile Users
Location and the proximity are the key ranking variables in mobile. Therefore, it is important to optimise your website for both mobile and desktop and to track each channel separately. By doing so there is a great chance of jumping on opportunities as they present themselves and reacting to threats more effectively.
Here are eight tips on how to create mobile friendly content for your website
- Remember that the size of the screen is a lot smaller. Images need to be optimised so the visitor doesn’t have problems scrolling past them. The images also need to load quickly to reduce loading times of your site but also to save the user money on their data.
- Avoid putting images at the top of your content unless the user is expecting an image, such as in a photo gallery.
- Pages should be divided up into easily absorbed chunks rather than one long piece of text. Keep the sentences short.
- Don’t make the visitor zoom in to read the content. Make the font large enough to read with ease.
- Long link text is a lot easier for users to click on than.
- Keep the URL of your web pages short and simple, it’s easier for users to type the link into their search bar if it’s short.
- Add navigation to the bottom of the page so the user doesn’t have to scroll all the way back up to the top (it’s much more appealing to simply back out).
- Test your website on all sorts of different devices, old and new.
Are you creating content for your mobile visitors or are you still concentrating on desktop users?
