By now most small businesses understand that a mobile strategy is a non-negotiable factor for success, but it’s important we keep the conversation going about how to conquer the mobile space correctly. There are right ways and wrong ways to create mobile landing pages just as there are when you’re working with a desktop website (and the two are not the same). You must constantly go back and reassess your methods, and unfortunately, this idea seems to have slowed down over the last year now that most people have their strategy in place and set to go.
How to Craft the Perfect Mobile Landing Page
There are many different factors that go into a mobile strategy, but a landing page is a big one. According to Jason Hawkins, Director of Marketing specializing in advertising for America’s surgeons, “Many people do tend to show their desktop landing page on a mobile phone, but with a little bit of work you can create a landing page specifically for mobile that will cater more towards users and lead to better results.” Consider some of the tips below:
Headlines and CTAs. Keep them short and sweet.
Although having a headline isn’t totally necessary (yes, sometimes images are enough), most people like to have something to let people know what the page is about. The trick here is to keep things simple and short as possible. You don’t have much space and your headline shouldn’t be the only thing users see. It seems important, but as you’ll notice there are quite a few other things you want to have on your landing page to be successful.
A CTA, or call to action, is also something important to consider. Again, you want this to be visible, but you also want it to be short. If you are an eCommerce site trying to sell a product, tell readers in a quick and concise way what they need to do next.
Organization. Make sure visitors can learn more easily.
You don’t want people to have to scroll to find a button to learn more about something or be taken to another page. On that same note, you want users to be able to find these buttons easily. This means resisting the urge to fill up your entire page with content and graphics. You definitely want a call to action (more in the next section) and you definitely want images, but you want the “more information” type buttons to be the thing that stands out.
You also want to make sure that these buttons are clickable. In other words, they are large enough that someone on a mobile phone will be able to press them without accidentally pressing something else. This goes for other items too such as phone numbers or location information (side note, these are all incredibly important for local SEO). Part of making these buttons and links easy to click is leaving some whitespace around them.
Load Times
This is something that should always be on your mind when you’re creating a mobile landing page. People are impatient when searching on their phones, so you want your load time to be as fast as possible (you always want this, but this is even more so than you would on a desktop). There are a few tips to keep in mind, and be warned you may need your developers to help you put these into action:
- Don’t use Flash because it is not compatible with all mobile phones.
- Try to use .jpg format whenever you can as opposed to .png images.
- Try to compress and/or combine your CSS files in order to decrease HTTP requests.
- Consider housing your CSS files externally.
- A content delivery network will help you cache your content from your server to be closer to the user’s location. In other words, the content is duplicated on multiple servers so users are able to automatically use the one that is closest to them, which cuts down on loading times.
- A good rule of thumb is to keep your landing page around 20 kilobytes.
A/B Testing
Of course, we have to say it—A/B testing is key. It’s not easy to get your mobile landing page right the first time. Try lots of different options until you really narrow it down to something that works. Test not only the format of the landing page but also the content that you’re putting on the page.
The Case for Mobile Landing Page Templates
So for many who are maybe thinking about moving to a mobile landing page as opposed to using desktop landing pages for mobile, knowing where to start is really the tough part. It’s great if you have tips regarding what the landing page should cover and look like, but you have to be able to put that into action.
If you’re working with an SEO agency, typically they will help you make your mobile landing page ideas a reality, and this is often an excellent way to make sure everything is running smoothly and following SEO rules. Amanda DiSilvestro is the Editor in chief for Plan, Write, GO. She has been writing about all things digital marketing, both as a ghostwriter, guest writer, and blog manager, for over 10 years. Check out her blogging services to learn more!
