Learn best practices for optimizing performance on your mobile website, starting with your ad destination page.

Mobile optimization is the ongoing process of improving a mobile website’s design and interface. It’s commonly known as making a mobile website more “mobile-friendly” so that it is easy for people to use the website using a mobile device, most commonly a smartphone.

Mobile optimization is important because people use their phones several times a day, from ordering their morning coffee to reading the news and purchasing everything from groceries to gifts. Mobile devices are an important part of most people’s daily lives. Ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly is necessary to make sure your customers can get the information they need or to complete their purchase.

More and more Internet traffic is occurring on a mobile device, meaning that more people are accessing websites using their smartphones instead of using a desktop. Websites that are mobile optimized and mobile friendly are necessary in a world where people are spending so much time browsing websites on their mobile devices.

When a website is optimized for mobile, you can lower your bounce rates and improve conversion rates. Websites that are optimized for mobile make it easier for consumers to:

• Learn more about what sets the brand apart and what it offers.
• Browse the brand’s products and services.
• Convert, whether this is completing a purchase, filling out a form, etc.

Follow the 3 Cs of high-performing ad destination page best practices:

• Continuity: Ensure products, messages, promotional offers and pricing are consistent between the ad and the destination page.
• Content: Convey your value proposition clearly and concisely. Use large, engaging images and video to drive consideration.
• Call-to-action: Offer a compelling, highly visible call-to-action (CTA) button that spans the width of the screen.
• Read Stick the landing: How to optimize your destination page to improve ads performance to learn more.

A website that has responsive design resizes images and repositions text when the website is viewed on a smaller device. It’s also referred to as being responsive to screen size. Responsive design is a good start to optimizing your website for mobile devices.

There are many ways to optimize your mobile website, such as:

• Break up large blocks of text with images and icons.
• Check that the minimum font size on your website is 13 pixels since this size is legible for people who may have vision impairment.
• Make sure that if there is text on top of images that the text is easily legible and does not blend into the image behind it.
• Allow people to navigate back to your homepage no matter where they are on your website. You can do this through implementing breadcrumbs at the top of the page as people navigate deeper into your website. You can also do this by allowing people to navigate to your homepage from your global header, which typically appears at the top of all pages on your website.
• Make forms easy for people to fill out on your mobile website. You can do this by:
  • Indicating which fields are required with an asterisk, so it’s clear to people what they must fill out.
  • Making sure that fields with only numeric answers (such as phone number and credit card) open up into the numeric keyboard, not the alphabetical keyboard.
  • Allowing autofill on forms to help people move through checkout easily.

There are several ways to tell if your brand’s website is mobile-friendly. One great way to check is to visit your website using a mobile device and think about how easy it is to navigate, read, and make a purchase or fill out a form compared to some of your favorite websites.

Another way to get feedback on your website is to ask friends and family to visit your mobile website and ask them what they think. You may hear things like, “There’s too much text”, “I can’t find what I’m looking for”, or “These images are too small.” These are all signs that your website needs to be optimized in order to be more mobile-friendly.

Take a look at your reviews and customer service inquiries to see if people have questions or complaints about your mobile website. This information can direct you to problematic areas of your website that may need attention.

One way to start is to look at the pages to where you direct your ads traffic, then follow the 3 Cs of high performing ad destination page best practices. Read Stick the landing: How to optimize your destination page to improve ads performance to learn more.

Many factors can impact whether or not a website is optimized for mobile. These factors impact your consumers’ experience on your mobile site and if many of your consumers are having a poor experience, they may leave and may not return.

• Page speed throughout your mobile website. If you tap on a button and it takes more than a few seconds for the page to load, people may leave your website.
• Using popups thoughtfully and limiting them to once per session.
• Including a global header and menu access on all your mobile website pages that allows people to navigate your website.
• Allowing for some white space on your mobile website so it is not too crowded.
• Ensuring the text on your mobile website is large enough to be legible.

Internal factors may include limited resources, meaning that you’ll have to prioritize making those changes that are most likely to have the greatest impact. Testing the changes you make is a good way to tell whether or not you are taking steps in the right direction to optimize your mobile website.

External factors may include the platform on which your website is hosted, which may come with its own limitations as well as tools and resources to improve your mobile website.