6 Mistakes That Turn Mobile Customers Away -

Think of the online customer as a spoilt child – and that child doesn’t like waiting. A delay in delivering a mobile friendly website causes them havoc, rushing away as if you have the plague – all this happens because of a few schoolboy errors.

The digital generation has no patience for disappointment in user experience. They want it now, they want it their way. We’ve identified six issues that are particularly annoying for mobile users, and any one of these mistakes could drive visitors away from your site.

1. Your website simply fails to load

Even the giants of American marketing sometimes fall short in the most basic ways, by making sites that entirely fail to appear on mobile devices. Although visibility into the mobile UX can be challenging ‒ especially when you factor in the sheer number of mobile devices and the slowness and inaccuracy of many mobile testing tools, it’s no excuse for making a site that doesn’t work at all on mobiles.

Doritos recently had a high profile campaign designed to leverage the excitement surrounding the Batman vs. Superman movie – but it didn’t go to plan, as it did not work at all on mobiles. Can anything be sadder than pouring buckets of money into a high-profile campaign, only to have it not appear? All that money created irritation, not excitement.

Tip: Make sure your website displays on all market-leading phones or tablets!

2. Lacks responsive web design

With the majority of web traffic (51%) now coming from mobiles, it’s more important than ever to ensure your site works on any device and any screen size. If a mobile user visits your site and finds it’s not responsive, the tiny, illegible content and poor user experience will hurt your brand reputation considerably. They’ll immediately leave your site and seek a competitor with better mobile UX.

Tip: First introduced in 2010, responsive web design is a complete methodology and practice for crafting websites.

3. Important content placed below fold lines

First impressions definitely count. Is your messaging optimally situated above the fold line? Do your mobile visitors see a complete image and call to action when they first access your website? Is their attention quickly captured or are they confused by abbreviated headlines and images hiding below the fold? Indeed, your site visitors will scroll, but only if what’s above the fold appears compelling enough. You need to know where your content falls in relation to your fold line and whether it’s making your website inviting and mobile friendly, or not.

Tip: Make sure your most important messaging appears above the fold on all devices.

4. Missing videos

Flash video does not appear on iOS devices, and auto playing background videos won’t work either. Think twice before deploying videos on your websites homepage.

Tip: Always check if your videos display and play.

Web dev teams: Stay away from Flash-based media, but DO use HTML5 video types, including MP4, WebM, and Ogg/ogv. In addition, the MPEG-4 file type is generally encoded in H.264, which allows for playback in third-party Flash players. This means you don’t need to keep a .flv video copy to support a fallback method!

5. Text too small to be legible

Over a third of customers polled by comScore say they choose to shop on their desktop computer because product information on phones is incomplete or too difficult to view. If your site requires customers to zoom in to read content or navigate through a multistep menu, they may head to a competing website that’s more mobile friendly.

Tip: If your content isn’t legible without zooming, consider enlarging your font size and simplifying your design. A core principle of responsive web design is “keep it simple.”

Web dev teams: Use media queries to control font size and spacing on mobile devices.

6. Painfully slow load time

Google has highlighted the critical importance of load time for user experience. Anything over 4 seconds creates frustration for mobile users and will likely result in them bouncing off your website. Cutting down load time will definitely help keep your mobile visitors happy.

Tip: Strive to keep your load time under 4 seconds on phones and under 10 seconds on tablets. Every additional second of loading time results in a 7% reduction in conversions. The number one reason for slow load time is images that are not properly sized and optimised.

Learn more about Web-Feet’s mobile friendly sites and let us know your comments or questions below!