How to Optimize a Shopify Store for Mobile?

 

With the hustle and bustle of life nowadays, people rely so much on their mobile devices for day-to-day tasks. So much to the point that smartphones have trumped any other device, even for surfing the web. In fact, the mobile eCommerce revenue in Singapore will be performing so well in 2022 that it is even predicted to grow to approximately six billion US dollars by 2024. Because of this, UX designers have gradually prioritized utilizing mobile devices for their websites, as they realize how vital it is for their long-term success. While Shopify offers a way to do this, specific steps can help integrate this effectively. With that, this article will discuss how to optimize the Shopify store for mobile for eCommerce stores.

What is Shopify Mobile Optimization?

First and foremost, we must first briefly establish what Shopify is. Shopify is an online platform that allows companies to grow and run their business on the web. And with the importance of mobile devices, provides fully rendered themes that can adapt to any screen size. Additionally, mobile-optimized content receives a higher ranking when the search is performed on a mobile device.

However, when it comes to thoroughly making your website mobile-friendly, one mustn’t rely on responsiveness alone. This is where Shopify Mobile Optimization comes in.

Shopify Mobile Optimization is the process of developing and enhancing your Shopify website for mobile. This is essential to not only improve your visitor’s mobile experience but to avoid these main problems:

·         Low SEO Rankings – Search engines prioritize Shopify websites properly optimized for mobile use. In fact, search engines boost mobile-optimized content when a search is done on a mobile device. Focusing on mobile optimization will help more customers find you.

·         Bad Reputation – When your website isn’t optimized for mobile, it will make your business look unprofessional, which makes your brand image suffer. Not only will no one want to visit your unstructured site, but no one will recommend you either. You will end up losing customers before you’ve even made any.

·         Low-generated Sales – Difficulty in navigating through your website, along with slow loading speeds, and overpopulated pages will drive potential customers away. This will inevitably lead your sales to drop and your business to suffer.

Why Shopify eCommerce Store Experts & Designers plan for Mobile-first?

Now that we understand the importance of mobile optimization, let us look into the Mobile-first approach. Designers created this method with the idea of initially developing mobile UX design before adapting them for desktop use. This helps UX designers ensure a seamless experience and transition onto the desktop. As websites are created for smaller screens, they eventually just expand for larger ones.

The mobile-first approach, created by former CEO of Google Eric Schmidt, has the rationale that mobile designers are dealt with more limitations. Because mobile screens are smaller, it’s much more challenging to fit elements onto a single page. Therefore, designers now have the responsibility of having to choose which ones to include, and distinguish which are truly essential among the rest. Getting this out of the way early on will save you a lot of time and trouble so you can focus on other important tasks.

How to Optimize Shopify eCommerce Store for Mobile?

There are many factors that contribute to an efficient and successful Shopify mobile website. To ensure your business keeps mobile users in mind, here are five steps on how to optimize your Shopify store for mobile.

1. Optimize Your Buttons

Nothing is more frustrating than trying to tap a button on a mobile website and accidentally selecting something else. This is most probably due to the design or the gap between each button. By determining the exact dimensions of your tap targets, you will relieve your customers of this inconvenience. Designing buttons that are wide enough to be tapped is also an important step. While you are free to choose your own dimensions, one option can be 48 pixels wide with a distance of 32 pixels apart.

2. Streamline Your Navigation Bar

You may think that providing several different sections and tabs for your customers will help them find exactly what they’re looking for. However, this can actually be counterproductive. Having too many tabs can confuse your customers and will increase the bounce rate of your site, eventually costing you SEO rankings and sales. With that, you must determine what sections are actually important and leave the rest out of your navigation bar. Minimizing the number of navigational layers in each tab also helps as it can be quite overwhelming for customers to keep tapping repeatedly. Lastly, due to the limited screen space, it is important to keep all your tabs under one menu. You can hide all of these with a simple toggle menu button.

Users can easily navigate through your different tabs by simply clicking on the button to expand and collapse the menu. This frees up a lot of space on the mobile device screen, contributing to an overall better user experience.

Additionally, making sure your navigation bar is always in sight helps customers have easy access to business-critical information at all times. Fixing the main navigation menu on the top of the screen helps achieve this. This is so it remains visible despite scrolling through the rest of your website.

3. Plan Your Text Layout

Because of your screen’s limited space, planning what text to put and how much information to include is vital as well. Customers seek to know details about you and your products, so you must provide accordingly. Choosing a font that is too small, distracting or uneasy on the eyes, as well as overcrowding of words, are factors that worsen user experience and drive away customers.

4. Strategically Place Your Call-to-Action Buttons

The main goal of an eCommerce website, no matter the device, is to drive people to avail of your products or services. With that, it is important to constantly push your visitors into the purchase. However, this must be done effectively, not excessively. Strategically displaying your Call-to-Action buttons will help you achieve this goal, as it repeatedly, but subtly reminds your customers of their purpose – to add to the cart.

5. Simplify Your Checkout Process

Having mentioned that the ultimate goal of your website visitors is to checkout, it is vital to ensure their checkout process is seamless. The easier you make it for them to purchase, the more sales you will generate. With that, you can look into Shopify easy-checkout apps.

·         Shop Pay – This method, created and owned by Shopify themselves, offers an easy one-click payment method that will make transactions easier. It saves customers’ payment information for faster purchases in the future. Shop Pay also offers several payment options.

·         Amazon Pay – This payment method allows customers to use the same payment details as their Amazon account, which provides a seamless transaction. Amazon Pay even allows people to purchase just with their voice, via applications like Alexa.

One mistake that you should always avoid is sending customers to external, third-party payment gateways. Adding an extra, and time-consuming step to your customer experience can lead to the abandonment of their order.

Optimize Your Shopify Website For Mobile Use with Verz Design!

The widespread usage of mobile devices for surfing the web is something that will only get bigger. Because people have gotten accustomed to shopping online, it’s a must that eCommerce businesses adapt. With that, one thing is made clear: mobile devices are surpassing desktops, making mobile optimization much more important. With Verz Design, a certified Shopify plus partner, you can ensure your customer’s mobile experience is unparalleled. Get in touch at 6841 1680 or email us at sales@verzdesign.com for a free consultation!