Mobile optimization is something you need to consider

This is something that you perhaps haven’t considered, but ponder over it for a second; is your website ready for mobile devices or does it need further mobile optimization? Many reports have predicted that there will be some 1.7 billion mobile internet users by the year 2013. And if they find that your website isn’t fully mobile optimized, they’ll simply turn elsewhere. It’s quite safe to say that more than a few of them will visit your site and view it on a screen no larger than your open hand. That is why you need mobile optimization. Could you imagine surfing through a website that is cramped, counter-intuitive and hard to read from a mobile device? Well, neither can your user base.

It’s not just about ease of navigation or viewability either. It’s about connection speeds. Your website will usually be rendered nicely on laptops and desktops with their higher connection speeds. But mobile users have to make do with slower connections. Telecommunication service providers ramp up their services all the time, but the experience is still a slow one for users. That’s logical; the more capacity that is added, the faster it is consumed by users. No matter where your visitors come from, they need to have a good experience on your website. And the requirement for mobile optimization holds true for regular and first-time visitors.

What good is that fancy, even gorgeous site design if you don’t consider the needs of your users? An increasing percentage of your users are going to come from mobile devices such as the iPad, the iPhone, Android devices and the upcoming PlayBook. In the light of that, great looks is only so important. What needs to be prioritized is usability and a high quality experience. You have to make sure your website feels great for everyone out there. The problem is sometimes we don’t know how to do that and that’s understandable. But there are some very easy things you can do to take your first steps towards mobile optimization of your website.

The first thing to do, especially if you are using WordPress, is to make the website more mobile friendly by using plugins. All it will take you is 30 seconds (yes, really) and WP Touch is perhaps the best of the lot. The price is right (it’s free!) and it’s a very customizable tool that you can use to suit your needs and your site. Of course, visitors should be given the option of visiting the standard site too. But before you install any plugins, make sure you back up the website. Seriously, do that right now.

Another simple thing that can be done is to create simpler navigation. That eases things up considerably and makes mobile optimization so much easier. There should be clear, distinctive ways to make the site seem usable. While you’re at it, cut back on the images; they can be heavy to load and take away from the mobile experience and cut back on Flash and Javascript too. Not all mobile devices can support those two standards. The better option is to simply go with (X)HTML/CSS standards for universal viewability.