A couple of simple tips and guidelines you can implement to make sure your mobile site is as user friendly as possible.

2. Mobile Web Usability
0 More and more people are browsing the internet with their phone
0 Businesses are still underutilising the power of mobile websites by not fully
optimising their site for the mobile user.
0 A few years ago sites could have got away without having a mobile version of
their site but not anymore.
0 Mobile websites have gone from being an attractive extra to an absolute
necessity – and it isn’t enough just having one.
0 With the commercial and economic opportunities available to online
businesses via mobile phones it is crucial that the mobile site is designed to
optimise the mobile user experience.
0 Non mobile friendly sites are losing out on an increasingly large amount of
business as more and more people buy though mobile devices.
0 Fortunately there are a couple of simple tips and guidelines you can
implement to make sure your mobile site is as user friendly as possible.

3. Streamline Content
0 Landing pages and content “above the fold” is crucial when it comes
to PC websites.
0 Do not waste time, effort and most importantly space, putting
anything but the most important information on your mobile pages.
0 Removing things like side menus or other content links allows your
site to focus on only the most important information, making your
site easier to read, quicker to load and generally improving user
experience.
0 When it comes to seeking mobile conversions or sales it is crucial
that your site prioritises important information relevant to
conversions such as contact details.
0 Overloading your page with irrelevant content will push important
content down making it less likely to be found. Users will also
become frustrated with having to scroll or delve deeper in to your
site to find the content they want.

4. Optimise Layout
0 An easy way to streamline your content and improve user
experience is to optimise your page layout for mobile
devices. Simply displaying your standard PC website
through a mobile device will negatively affect your users
experience and likely lead to a high bounce rate. The text
displayed will be too small to read and users will have to
navigate a raft of different menus.
0 Optimise your layout into just one single column with
additional content running down the page not across. This
allows users to use the far more natural and preferred
process of scrolling downwards, avoiding the need to scroll
sideways or zoom in and out.

5. Alter Navigation
0 Placing all your navigation at the top of pages moves the valuable content
too far down below the fold and with a single column layout it can’t go down
the side – where does it go?
0 The answer is to emphasise your homepage. Only place navigation on your
homepage and do so at the top of the page. On other pages place your
content at the top with the only navigation links being back to the homepage
or the most relevant previous step in the user’s journey. Placing breadcrumb
links at the top of the page with navigation links back to the homepage at the
bottom, users are able to easily navigate the site without detracting from the
valuable content.
0 If your site’s users want to see content straightaway rather than look to
navigate or search for specific content you should place the navigation at the
bottom. This way it does not get in the way of reading the content but can
still be easily accessed by the user.
0 Placing an anchor link at the top of the page will allow users to reach the
navigation quickly and easily.

6. Take Advantage of Inbuilt
Functionality
0 Mobile phones were initially designed to just make phone calls (I
know it might seem hard to believe!).
0 Take advantage of this by allowing users to automatically call a
number when clicking or tapping a contact phone number.
Similarly phones now have in built map applications.
0 Give user’s a better idea of your location by automatically
opening the phone’s map application after the user clicks on your
address on site.
0 Take advantage of social media in regards to your website. Make
it easy for a user to share your mobile site socially or share their
location via the device’s inbuilt GPS. This can allow users to
better interact with each other and find nearby stores or events.

7. Conclusions
0 2013 is set to be the year of the mobile. Marketers and
webmasters are waking up to the power of mobile devices. The
mobile will hold a crucial role in how businesses promote and
market their websites online.
0 It is crucial that as mobile devices are increasingly used to access
the internet that websites provide users with as clear and
smooth a user experience as possible.
0 Following some of the above guidelines will help in ensuring you
get the best return from your mobile website.
0 This presentation is brought to you by London Marketing Agency
Only Marketing – a division of Beattie Communications, a London
PR agency specialising in B2B PR, Consumer PR and Food PR.