5 Aha Moment Ways That Can Help Boost Your Mobile Conversions

People are spending more and more time on their phones—in fact, a recent report revealed that in 2020 Americans spent 8% more time on their mobile than watching live TV every day. Based on this statistic, ranking in mobile conversions should be a breeze, right? 

Only, the reality is it’s not always that easy. Mobile comes with its own set of challenges that can mean your mobile conversions aren’t quite as high as you’d like. There are some simple ways you can boost your mobile conversions—get ready to discover (and action) five of the most effective tactics.

#1. Boost Your Site Speed

The average time it takes to load a webpage on mobile fully is 27.3 seconds, which is pretty alarming when you consider that nearly 70% of consumers admit that page speed influences their willingness to buy online.  

It’s safe to say. Loading speed is essential when it comes to keeping your mobile audience happy. Just a 0.1-second improvement in mobile site speed increases retail conversion rates by 8.4%, which is a pretty impressive uplift!

On the flip side, a slow mobile site means many of your mobile users won’t even see your page, let alone hang around long enough to convert. A speedy mobile site is the first step to better conversions—so what can you do to improve your mobile loading speeds?

Compress Your Images

Website performance tools are quick to flag image compression issues, and you’ve probably heard about the merits of image optimization before. Images make up nearly 75% of the total page weight on most websites, so you can see why image compression is so significant!

Compressing your images is free and easy—there are plenty of online tools where you can input your chosen images and compress them before uploading them onto your website. Some, like Kraken.io, let you choose between lossless and lossy compression:

• Lossless compression keeps every single pixel, helping the image maintain its quality while reducing the file size. 
• Lossy compression removes some pixel data to achieve a greater reduction in file size, usually without visible results. 

Lossy compression is great for standard images, but lossless is safest for logos and other branding materials.

Review Your Hosting

Sometimes web hosting is behind slow-loading websites. Whether their servers aren’t up to scratch or you’re on the wrong plan, your hosting provider plays a huge part in delivering your site quickly to visitors. 

If you’re on a shared hosting plan, it may be time to upgrade to a more advanced package with more features, as shared hosting plans share resources between multiple websites. It’s worth checking your bandwidth and storage limits to assess whether your hosting plan is still serving your needs—your hosting provider can help you do this.

Cut Excess Code

Over time, websites can get bogged down with old code and unnecessary features or design elements. If your site has been up and running for a while, it’s worth taking a look over your code to check if you still need it all. 

Remember that simplicity is key, especially on mobile. Use images wisely. Your pages might seem exciting with flashy media or autoplaying adverts. But, if it’s taking 3-5 seconds more to load on mobile, you should think about leaving them out on smaller devices.

If you’re not using responsive web design, you should seriously reconsider. One crucial benefit is that responsive web design helps you optimize your site for the devices your audience likes to use. Why spend a lot of time and effort designing your site for gigantic desktop screens when most of your visitors prefer their smartphones and tablets?

Once you’ve removed any old or redundant code, you can minify the remaining code to make your site even more lightweight. Minifying basically “compresses” your code to cut away any unnecessary characters—which, in turn, speeds up page loading times. 

Minifying your code won’t affect how it works; it only removes characters that aren’t needed to make the code work. 

#2. Re-Think Your Call to Action Buttons

Call-to-action buttons provide an easy, inviting way for visitors to take action, whether that’s completing a sale or signing up for your newsletter. 

On mobile, there are certain simple ways to make your call-to-action buttons even more intuitive and inviting:

Make Buttons Larger 

One of the most important factors when designing your call-to-action buttons on mobile is their size. You want your buttons to be nice and big because this makes them easy to click on.

Remember that, on mobile, people aren’t using a small, precise mouse cursor to navigate your site. People use their thumb or finger to tap on buttons, and they’re often scrolling pretty quickly or using your site on the go. This means larger buttons are much more people-friendly, as they’re easy to hit with a fingertip.

Call-to-action buttons that are too small can quickly frustrate mobile users, especially if you have to zoom in to click on them—not only that, but they’re easy to miss if the person is scrolling through your site at speed!

Embrace White Space

There’s no point having a lovely large call to action button if it’s crammed in next to lots of other content. 

Surrounding your call-to-action buttons with plenty of white space helps your design look good, but it also serves a more practical purpose, making buttons easier to tap with a thumb or finger.

Have you ever tried tapping a button on mobile where the surrounding content kept interfering? You end up highlighting text or clicking the wrong link, neither of which results in a conversion!

White space helps draw attention to important content such as calls to action while also improving the functionality and clickability of your buttons. It’s a win-win!

Think About Button Placement

The best places to put call-to-action buttons on desktop sites don’t always translate to mobile. The way we navigate and use mobile sites is vastly different from scrolling through a desktop site—placing your call-to-action buttons in different places can make a big difference.

The main reason for this is that people hold mobile devices in their hands, meaning a lot of control comes from the bottom of the screen, which they can easily reach with their thumbs. It therefore makes sense to place call-to-action buttons in this “thumb zone” to make it as easy as possible for visitors physically to click on your calls to action!

Make Your Buttons Stand Out

Make your mobile calls to action as visible as possible by using contrasting colors, bordered buttons rather than plain text, and a clear, readable font.

Your button color should contrast with your background color so that it stands out easily from the rest of your content. Effective contrast draws the person’s attention to your buttons while also signaling they are an integral part of the page. 

Plain text calls to action are great, but they’re easily missed on mobile devices. Using a bordered, colorful button instantly shows people that this is a clickable button—don’t leave them doubting where they should take action!

#3. Create a Visual Hierarchy

The challenge in creating a visual hierarchy on mobile is that you only have a small space to work with. On a desktop, you have a lot more room to use bold headings, bright buttons, images, paragraphs, and so on. 

Thanks to responsive web design, the good news is that this can all be easily and automatically translated to mobile without you needing to reformat your pages manually. 

Way back in 2012, Google revealed that responsive web design was its recommended approach for creating mobile sites, and this still holds true. This is why many popular website builders now use responsive templates as standard because it means even beginners can easily create well-structured, mobile-friendly websites. 

However, sometimes you may need to tweak your desktop or mobile design to maintain a visual hierarchy on smaller devices.

A clear visual hierarchy is important because it instantly tells visitors what’s important on the page and creates an ordered and comfortable user experience. 

You can create a hierarchy on mobile through color, contrast, size, and placement to create relationships between different elements. For example, you know headings are important because they’re bigger than body text. Larger headings are an example of visual hierarchy!

Visual hierarchy can help boost conversions because it helps people navigate your page and easily find important information. Here are a few ways you can create a visual hierarchy:

Use Text Sizes to Help Navigation

There’s a reason why titles, brand names, and headings are often the largest text on a page—it’s because they signal to the reader that these are important and demand attention straight away. People naturally then focus on the smaller text, such as subheadings or body text. 

Use Color to Grab Attention

Bright, bold colors are excellent at grabbing attention quickly. Using a bright, contrasting color for your call-to-action buttons is an example of how visual hierarchy can directly boost conversions by catching the person’s attention. 

Give Key Elements Plenty of Space 

Just as white space can make your calls to action stand out, it can also draw attention to images, headings, text, and more. Less important elements can be grouped together with less space between them, while other elements can be separated to direct the gaze towards them. 

#4. Simplify Communication

While it’s not as obvious as changing up your call-to-action buttons or improving site speed, making it easy for people to contact you is a great way to boost mobile conversions. This is especially true if you’re focusing on gaining more email subscribers or having a custom pricing model. 

Mobile devices are primarily used for communication. You can use this to your advantage by leveraging instant messaging, providing “click to call” buttons, and simplifying contact or sign-up forms.

Make Forms Easy to Fill Out

Are your forms mobile-friendly? If visitors request a custom quote or sign up for your newsletter, the UX of your forms matters a lot. Can you comfortably type without having to zoom in? Does the form fit on a mobile screen without having to scroll? Questions like these will help you create a more enjoyable—and therefore more successful—process.

Optimize Your Contact Options For Mobile

According to Google, 60% of smartphone users have contacted a business directly using the “click to call” option in the search results. Place a “click to call” button on your website to give visitors the option of ringing you with just one click instead of filling out a contact form or having to find your number first.

#5. Shorten the User Journey

Did you know that 58% of smartphone users feel more favorable toward companies whose mobile sites remember who they are and their past behavior? This is a perfect example of how people love their customer journeys to be as easy as possible. 

If you have a checkout process, now is definitely the time to review each step. How long is it? Are there any points where people have to enter information more than once? Do you have a guest checkout, or do customers have to create an account to complete their purchase? 

Asking these questions will give you a great insight into your customer journey and provide a big opportunity to boost your conversions simply by shortening your checkout process. 

Deliver Key Information Straight Away

On mobile, it’s best to present key information as soon as possible. If you know many people visit your site for a particular reason—for example, to reserve a table at your restaurant or book a class at your studio—help them carry out this action as quickly as possible.

Knowing your audience’s intent is key to giving them exactly what they’re looking for as quickly as possible so that they can convert effortlessly. 

Streamline Your Checkout

If your conversions come in the form of sales, your checkout needs to be smooth, fast, and simple. Having to create an account is the second most popular reason why buyers abandon their carts in the US—this highlights the fact that shoppers want a frictionless checkout experience. 

However, friction is unavoidable at checkout—buyers must enter their name, address, payment information, and email, even when using a guest checkout. Make sure your shoppers never have to enter information twice and use tools such as address autofill to save shoppers time and effort. 

Personalize Your User Experience

Where you can, personalize your user experience. If a customer has bought from you before, recommend similar products—this saves shoppers time, as it connects them with products straight away. 

If you’re a brick-and-mortar business with an online presence, use geo-location to direct customers to their nearest branch. 

Research from Nectafy says 88% of searches for local businesses on mobile devices either call or visit the business within 24 hours! This can be particularly effective with retail stores and restaurants, as it can result in “real life” conversions or repeat customers rather than solely focusing on digital metrics. 

Boosting Mobile Conversions: Wrap-Up

Mobile devices can present a unique challenge because of their smaller displays and a rather impatient user base. But, looking at what lies beyond, there’s an incredible opportunity to take conversions to the next level.

When optimizing your mobile site, always come back to your visitor. How can you make life easier for them to convert? What do they want to see when they land on your site? How can you give it to them? 

At the end of the day, boosting mobile conversions is all about keeping things simple. Whether you’re aiming for more sales or more email subscriptions, these five tactics will help you reach your goal!

The featured photo is from Magnet.me on Unsplash.