The holiday season has officially begun! Halloween is over, Cyber week and Thanksgiving are upcoming, and we are just a few weeks away from Christmas- the most awaited festival of the year. As per Statista, the holiday season online retail sales in the US reached USD 207 billion in 2021, whereas Cyber Monday and Black Friday remained the most relevant shopping days accounting for USD 11.9 and 9.5 billion in sales, respectively. The figures are related to the eCommerce segment, but we all know that the holiday season for any website owner is no less than a crop ready to be reaped.
Nearly 64% of American consumers plan to use mobiles for shopping this year (BusinessWire, 2022). The increased use of mobile for online shopping during the holiday season has created the need to optimize websites for mobile compatibility. This is a proactive step that can help you leverage maximum benefits from the upcoming sales season.
Are you ready to capitalize on the mindset of consumers during this festive shopping season? If so, this insightful post is for you. We’ve curated a list of the top 5 tips you need to keep in mind to prepare your website for the greatest holiday season of 2022.
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1. Make sure your site’s text is easy-to-read
Over the last few years, the number of mobile shoppers has increased dramatically. Google processes over 8.5 billion searches daily, of which 63% are from mobiles. This reason is strong enough to focus your attention on mobile-friendly website design.
Suppose the mobile version of your site requires customers to zoom in to read the content or frequently navigate from one section to another, but your website offers delayed responses or doesn’t allow the intended action to pass. In that case, users will leave your site and visit your competitor’s website if it is more welcoming and mobile-friendly.
Pro Tip: If the content available on your site isn’t readable without zooming, you should consider increasing the font size or simplifying the design of your site. Always remember that the core principle of mobile-friendly responsive web design is “keep it simple as much as possible.”
2. Always place important content above the fold
The First impression counts, and it always makes a big difference!
Is your content well-optimized for the mobile version? Have you placed your CTA buttons above the fold line? Are you able to capture the attention of your mobile visitors at first glance, or are your headlines and images hiding below the fold? Indeed, visitors will scroll down your site, but only if the fold content is compelling enough. You need to ensure that the important content of your site falls above the fold line and also figure out whether it’s making your website welcoming and mobile-friendly.
Pro Tip: Always ensure that the important message appears above the fold line on all devices
3. Keep your website load time under 3 seconds
Page load speed is a critical factor for higher traffic and search engine rankings, as Google takes this aspect very seriously. This is a clear signal for website owners to optimize the speed of their mobile website and pay utmost attention to the load time.
You can measure the mobile load time of your website by using tools like Google Page Speed Insights, GTmetrix, Pingdom, Mobilizer, and many others. Compress and optimize your images, reduce the number of redirects as much as possible, and enable browser caching for better results.
Pro Tip: Use Gzip to compress all files and try stripping out all unnecessary characters, comments, and spaces from the code. Use a trusted image optimization plugin like smush or Optimus.
4. Use responsive design
In a recent report, it was found that people spend 3 hours and 15 minutes on average on their smartphones daily. This means that if your website is not responsive, you’re losing money on the table. In layman’s language, a responsive design means making a website adaptable to different sizes of screens and devices. When you go for a responsive design, website developers use cascading stylesheet media queries, flexible images, and flexible layouts to create a website that is easily viewable on all mobile devices, irrespective of the screen size. This is one of the best options for making your website mobile-friendly and optimizing it for better SEO results too.
Pro Tip: Hire a trusted website development service and ask them to focus on fluid grid systems, fluid image use, and media queries in your web page designs.
Also Read : 8 Best PHP Frameworks for Web Development in 2022
5. Constant testing
This is another critical aspect that most website owners should pay more attention to. In this ever-changing world of technological innovations, you never know when compatibility issues can arise. Test your site on Android phones, iPhones, Windows phones, and on different tablets while putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and trying to figure out if there is anything that is hard to see or difficult to do. Hire website developers or testers to perform this task if you don’t have a competent in-house team.
Pro Tip: Nothing can work better than having a maintenance team for regular website performance updates, compatibility, and other necessary, timely updates.
Endnote
The longer you wait to make your website responsive, the higher would be the chances of turning away your potential clients. In other words, the responsiveness of a site is directly proportional to the revenue you would be generating.
How We Can Help You!
At TechnoScore, we have certified website developers and testers who know how to develop a mobile-friendly website that works seamlessly across all platforms and devices. Also, if you want a dedicated iOS application for your website, you can hire app developers from our team without breaking the bank.
