Unless you have been living under a rock, you will know that mobile is a huge business. Between people getting rid of their landlines, to Instagram and mobile shopping, having a website that is optimized for mobile is key.
In fact, a few statistics.
· Most of my customers are seeing more then half their traffic come from mobile devices which includes phones and tablets.
· 60% of all emails are opened on mobile devices and over 50% of all emails are opened on phones.
· Instagram, a mobile only platform is one of the fastest growing social media platforms in the world, growing at over 9% a year.
Your ecommerce store needs to be mobile optimized. It is important to distinguish between mobile optimized and mobile friendly. Mobile friendly just means it doesn’t use flash which is not supported on apple phones and tablets. Mobile optimized means it is designed to perform well on mobile devices.
Mobile CSS or Responsive
There are two ways to accomplish a mobile optimized site. The first way, and what a lot of people still use, is having what is called a separate mobile CSS or Mobile website. Essentially, when the website sees it is a phone, it shows the website designed for mobile devices.
The second way is what is called a responsive web design. In its simplest form, a mobile responsive website will change its layout to best show on mobile devices. For example, a website that has four columns on a desktop, when you look at it on a phone, it will move those columns underneath each other to maintain the size and ratio of those columns.
They both have pros and cons but more and more providers are moving to responsive over mobile CSS. Responsive is great for maintaining branding while a mobile CSS works really well for sites that have thousands of products.
Most providers are moving over to responsive websites and are phasing out their mobile sites. One such provider is Shopify which has gone completely responsive. BigCommerce is slowly phasing over to responsive as well but you can still use their mobile sites at this time.
How does Mobile affect the way you create a website?
There are a couple ways mobile is changing the way we create websites. First, sites have become much simpler. They are flatter and some might even say boring because those details get lost when you are trying to look at them in a 5 inch screen. The good this is it makes it easier for you to design your site.
The second, is making sure photos are optimized so they aren’t to big. If you take a photo with a DSLR camera, that photo could be 4 – 6 MB in size. Not only is internet slower on mobiles, but you have to worry about data limits on mobile plans. So, it is important to make sure you resize your photos so they load quick. Finally, are fonts. You will see most sites are using larger fonts that can be read easily on smaller devices.
What you need to do?
Well if you are learning from me, then you have nothing to worry about since the platforms I use are all mobile optimized. Shopify is 100% responsive so there is no need to design a separate site. And, when you take my course, I show you how to resize your photos with free tools so they work great on mobile.
Don’t wait
Go ahead and get the course right away and get started building your mobile optimized e-commerce store today.
