As more and more people are searching, enquiring, and shopping using mobile, it has become critical to optimise your online experience for mobile to boost conversions.
60% of sales happen through mobile. Learn more as data don’t lie.
This statistic highlights the undeniable shift in consumer behaviour and the importance of delivering a seamless mobile experience.
In this blog, you will learn some practical tips to increase your mobile conversion rate.
Table of contents:
- Data don’t lie
- Mobile-first design is a must
- Create website structure for mobile conversion
- Design to tap
- Don’t get them lost
- Make product images pixel-perfect
- Create mobile mobile-friendly checkout
- Optimise mobile page speed
- Consider CTA fixed – Header or Footer
- Load on scroll for a smooth experience
- Offer 1-click checkout
- A/B testing
Data don’t lie
You don’t need to act because of hype or fear of missing out (FOMO). Stick to facts, the following data is compelling enough to consider mobile as the primary device where most of your customers might be accessing your products or services online.
- 60% of sales happen through mobile: Did you know that over 60% of eCommerce sales happen through mobile? Check out this data.
- The average mobile eCommerce conversion rate is around 2.5 to 3%. This means for every 100 customers looking at your website, you can convert around 3 people at a time. https://www.speedcommerce.com/insights/ecommerce-benchmarks-conversion-rates-by-industry-over-by-year/
Since you know how important mobile is, let’s explore ways to increase mobile conversion rate.
Mobile-first design is a must
The mobile-first design doesn’t just mean the look, it’s the structure to ensure information can be accessed with minimum clicks and ease, it not only helps users but also SEO and importantly it has the potential to boost conversions.
Visual look is indeed one of the core elements but there is far more than just the look, here are some key elements you can consider to make your website mobile-first design.
- Structure: A good website structure helps users navigate through the site easily and facilitates the desired action of buying a product or enquiring about the service by having proper call-to-action strategies. Learn more about creating a good website structure to boost conversion.
- Navigation: This is an integral part of creating a mobile-first design. If users can’t find what they are looking for they will be gone fast! Try to use a hamburger menu which is widely popular and accepted. Avoid multi-level navigation as it can confuse users.
- Designed for Touch/Tap: Every element in your mobile website must be designed for touch/tap. This means the buttons should be large enough for users to tap while not being too large to cover the screen, read more in the design to tap section.
- Pixel Perfect Product Listing & Detail Page: Utilise the limited space available on mobile devices, each element should be designed with screen width and height consideration. Many do not pay attention to this but if you do you can make your product listing and detail page highly compelling.
- Checkout Designed for Mobile: If the user has done the hard work to reach here, you can’t afford to lose them, design the mobile checkout that is easy to use, learn more about mobile checkout design below with different considerations.
We have discussed some key mobile design elements in detail below along with other points.
Create website structure for mobile conversion
A well-organised eCommerce structure with mobile considerations plays a crucial role in boosting conversion rates.
Key points to consider while creating the best eCommerce structure with mobile consideration:
- Category Depth: If possible stick to 1-2 levels, the deeper you go the harder it becomes from the management point of view not only for Mobile but also for SEO indexing as there is the possibility to dilute or cannibalise content.
- URL & Content Flow: How you plan the content flow and the URL structure will determine the mobile usability and SEO ranking which has a direct impact on the conversions.
- Search Friendly Navigation: People like to get things fast and some users may not use navigation but they would use search and hence making it powerful to fetch navigation, along with products and content pages are critically for mobile experience.
Design to tap
Your mobile website must be designed so that users can tap the required buttons or links easily. This is a missed opportunity, many focus too much on overall design but forget about mobile, particularly designing so that it’s easier to tap the button or links available in the descriptions – it leads to conversion.
Whether the website is designed to buy online or enquire/sign up, the design to tap is an integral part of the mobile experience.
Call-to-action buttons like: Add To Cart, Buy Now, Enquire Now must be considered so that they are easy to tap.
Almost 49% people hold their phones in one hand and scroll, this means you need to make sure they are easily tapped by the thumb. For this, you need to look into what we call the “thumb zone” – ” – areas of the screen that users can reach easily with their thumb, especially when holding the device with one hand.
Consider the following methods to improve design to tap and overall mobile experience to boost conversions:
- Place CTAs in the thumb zone or towards the bottom of the screen so that the thumb can reach easily.
- Show up popups at the centre of the screen, but the CTAs should still appear below
- Give enough space for links and listings
Don’t get them lost
One of the main reasons for poor mobile conversion is that user gets lost while using the website or making a purchase.
Don’t lose them, provide a clear path (breadcrumb) where they are for easy navigation.
For example, let’s say you have a menswear store and a customer is looking at a shirt page, you could have a breadcrumb showing the path like:
Home >> Formal Business Shirts >> Van Heusen White Classic Fit Shirts In Multiple Sleeve Lenght
It provides users with a clear path to go back to the main category or use the main navigation to go to other areas.
Here are additional elements that you can consider to help users navigate easily:
- Fixed Header: A fixed header will scroll along with the user and stay on top so that the user can view other sections if they want to. The header can also have the CTA and other important links to make it easier for the user to convert.
- Search: Add a search bar to your mobile eCommerce website so that users can easily search for what they need instead of scrolling through your site. This makes sure that the user can complete their purchase quickly before going back to the main page or to your competitors.
- Back & Forward Buttons: Buttons like “Continue Shopping” or “Proceed To Checkout” in a prominent way can help customers to checkout easily. Just make sure they are easy to tap and only appear when the user has made an action.
Make product images pixel-perfect
Images sell.
Images can really make a difference when it comes to improving mobile conversion rates. You need to have high-quality images showing the product from different angles.
Visual communication is fast, if product images can demonstrate that it can solve their problems or needs then most likely they will buy.
A study by BigCommerce showed that over 78% of users want to see a product with high-quality images that can bring the product to life. This means they need to see a crisp image along with their features and benefits. *** Not the best data with relevance ***
Here are some tips to make your product images pixel-perfect and give a good visual impression to your visitors:
- Invest in getting quality photos of your products, and invest extra money if you need to get a photo shoot done professionally.
- Create photos showing how it can solve problems.
- Optimise images to fit well and reduce in size for faster loading.
- AB test if you have a different set of images to see what works best.
Create mobile mobile-friendly checkout
A study by Bayward Institutes showed that over 22% of users abandoned their carts due to a complicated checkout process.
You have done the hard work to bring quality traffic to your website and they are willing to purchase, you simply can’t afford to lose them, quality mobile checkout design is critical.
Consider the following elements to enhance the mobile checkout experience:
- Avoid Users Going Back & Forth: Displays necessary information so that they don’t need to go back and forth to either validate what they are purchasing or do other actions like adding a promo code, making payment etc. Once page checkout is a great solution for this.
- Minimise Form Fields: Give fewer forms and fields for your users to fill out – only ask for essential information that directly contributes to the sale.
- Add Autocomplete: Add autocomplete so that customers can add their address and payment information instantly to speed up the checkout process.
- Guest Checkout: Don’t force users to register, make this optional. No one likes to go through a complicated process just to make a purchase.
- Show safe checkout badge: Keep a safe checkout or secure checkout badge in your checkout page to show users that they can trust your checkout process. These visual elements can build trust for first-time customers and encourage them to complete their purchase.
Optimise mobile page speed
Did you know that “53% of visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than 3 seconds to load“?
This shows that page speed matters, especially when it comes to increasing mobile conversion rates. Most mobile users don’t have the time to wait, so each second of delay can reduce your conversions by up to 7%.
Here are some tips to optimise website speed for mobile devices:
- Design Foundation: Your mobile page speed is impacted by not just one or two elements, how you structure your website including code quality (HTML, JS, CSS), images, fonts, number of files etc impacts the mobile speed. Get your foundation right.
- Optimise Images: Don’t just upload random-size images, optimise them well in resolution and save them in the right format to reduce the file size.
- Remove Unnecessary Codes: Part of slow loading site for mobile or desktop is executing unused codes like CSS or JS, cleaning is highly recommended.
- Code Compression/Lazy Loading: Compress the code for faster execution.
Consider CTA fixed – Header or Footer
Consider having a fixed CTA in either your header or footer. This makes sure that visitors can take action at any time without having to scroll up or down back again.
Now whether to place the CTA on the header or footer completely depends on your design goals. There are studies that show CTAs placed at the footer or at the end of the product page can increase conversions by 70% since they are easy to reach by the thumb.
Elements to consider in fixed header CTA display:
- Navigation: Easy access to mobile navigation
- Cart, Search or Phone number display
Elements to consider in fixed footer CTA :
- Call icon
- Enquire or Email now
- Chat now
In either situation, the CTA must be clearly defined and have contrasting colours of the header or footer to make them stand out more. They should be within the boundaries of the header or footer but must be large enough to be easily clickable.
Load on scroll for a smooth experience
An important thing you need to consider for mobile eCommerce is scrolling. Mobile users use their thumbs a lot for this – they scroll to find the needed product.
You need to have “load on scroll” options for a smooth experience.
Offer 1-click checkout
After all the process your customer has gone through to find and add the product to their cart, you need to make sure you don’t lose them on the final step – the checkout process.
You need to make sure checkout is as simple as possible without any added forms or questions. For this, you can offer a 1-click checkout or express checkout option.
You can look into websites of Amazon, Temu, or eBay. They must have tried a variety of combinations to come up with the best possible solution.
A/B testing
While there are standard guidelines you will never know what works best for you until you do A/B testing.
Whether you are improving the design, call to action, checkout or any other element to boost mobile conversion, test different sets of designs to see what works best.
A/B testing is a method of comparing two versions of a webpage to determine which one performs better for conversions.
For mobile sites, here are some elements you can consider to check for in A/B testing:
- CTA Buttons: Check out your CTA buttons and experiment with different colours, wordings, and placement. Mobile users may respond better to larger buttons or CTAs placed in easy-to-click areas.
- Page Layout and Images: Test different layouts, such as grid vs. list view on product pages, or variations in image sizes and positions.
- Checkout Flow: As discussed above, make sure the checkout process is smooth. You can test single-page or multi-age checkout experiences to see which performs better.
- Navigation Elements: Check the navigation elements on your page, such as a static header or hamburger menus. These are important since they are what determines the ease of use on mobile.
Don’t stop at just one test. Keep on testing different variations until you find a perfect website design to boost conversions. After the design is complete, you can track various metrics such as bounce rates, click rates, and more and continue refining your site.
