Optimizing your Shopify store with the growing rise in Mobile shopping is essential.
81% of traffic on Shopify stores comes from mobile devices, and you don’t want to miss the opportunity to grab those potential customers. A few years back, users would browse stores on mobile devices and then complete their purchases on a desktop.
With the increase in trust in mobile devices, mobile users have started making purchases without concern. Therefore, crafting a smooth mobile user experience by visiting your eCommerce store through different mobile devices is more critical than ever.
That being said, using responsive themes alone cannot optimize the Shopify store; there are many things you should optimize to make your online store mobile-ready. In this article, we share tips to optimize your Shopify store for mobile devices; let’s dive in.
What is Shopify Mobile Optimization?
As more and more consumers use their mobile devices to shop online, Shopify store owners need to provide a better mobile experience for online shoppers.
Shopify Mobile Optimization refers to optimizing a Shopify store to ensure that it is easily accessible and user-friendly on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. This includes improving the store’s mobile design, page loading speed, and navigation to create a seamless mobile shopping experience for customers.
The goal is to ensure that customers can easily access and navigate your online store from any mobile device, which can help to increase sales and customer satisfaction.
Importance of Mobile Optimization for Shopify Stores
Mobile optimization is crucial for Shopify stores as an increasing number of users are accessing websites through mobile devices. A mobile-optimized Shopify store ensures the website is responsive, improves site speed, and is easy to navigate on smaller screens.
Here are some reasons to optimize your Shopify site-
- Mobile users are increasing: More and more people use mobile devices to browse and shop online. If your Shopify store is not optimized for mobile devices, you could also miss out on a large customer base.
- Improve Brand Reputation: A well-optimized website can improve a brand’s reputation by providing a positive user experience and making it easier for potential customers to find the information they need.
- Increased Traffic: With more than 50% of website traffic coming from mobile devices, optimizing your Shopify store for mobile devices can help you attract more visitors.
Benefits of Shopify Mobile Optimization
Optimizing your Shopify site for mobile users can bring many benefits, from improving user experience to building trust and making them loyal customers. Optimized mobile sites can help to improve the mobile usability of your web version and online experience.
Here are some benefits of Shopify store mobile optimization-
- Better user experience: Mobile optimization ensures your Shopify store is easy to navigate and use on handheld devices. This can lead to a better user experience and encourage customers to purchase.
- Improved search engine rankings: Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites in its search results. Optimizing your Shopify online store for mobile can improve your search engine rankings and attract more mobile traffic to your site.
- Increased conversions: A mobile-optimized Shopify store can increase conversions and sales. Customers are more likely to purchase when they can easily browse and buy products on their mobile devices.
- Competitive advantage: Mobile optimization is becoming the norm for online stores. Making your Shopify store mobile friendly lets you stay competitive and meet the needs of modern shoppers.
- Improved user experience: Mobile optimization ensures that your Shopify store is easy to navigate and use on mobile devices, leading to a better customer experience.
Some Tips to Build Mobile Optimized Store
There are numerous ways to optimize your Shopify store for mobile phones. It helps to improve SEO and user experience by improving page speed. We’ve handpicked the crucial ones.
Here are 10 tips to optimize your Shopify store for the mobile version-
Accessibility of the Navigation Bar
When your website has many products or pages, it might be overwhelming for customers to find what they want. Imagine a visitor landing on your homepage. He wants to know about the products you sell; without wasting time, the visitor would directly go to the product pages.
A good and easy navigation structure on your Shopify mobile view can help visitors quickly find what they want and encourage them to stay longer on your site. Remember, the navigation bar on your mobile site should not be similar to the desktop site. Instead, it should be more compact, simple, and easy to use and include only links to vital pages and information.
Test your navigation on different devices and screen sizes to ensure it is responsive and works well on all platforms.
Optimize product images and videos
If your images have a width that fits well on your desktop version, they might not fit your mobile site. Instead, you need to optimize your image size with the correct dimensions that fit the small screens and don’t increase page load time.
Compressing your images and videos to reduce their file size is crucial without hindering the quality. Optimizing the images can increase page speed, and search engine bots will be grateful. In addition, you can use a responsive or mobile-friendly Shopify theme to ensure that the website adjusts to fit the screen size of any device it’s being viewed on.
Optimizing your images and videos for mobile devices can help ensure that your content is accessible and engaging to users no matter how they are accessing it.
Improve the mobile page speed
Slow-loading pages might make visitors leave without finding them instantly, increasing your bounce rate. Here are some tips to speed up your website and improve customer experience:
- Optimize your images: Large image files can slow down your site. Use compression tools to reduce image file sizes without sacrificing quality.
- Minimize code: Remove unnecessary code, such as unused scripts or stylesheets, to help your site load faster.
- Use a content delivery network (CDN): A CDN can help distribute your site’s content to servers worldwide, reducing load times for users in different regions.
- Enable browser caching: Browser caching allows your site to store some data on a user’s device, making it quicker to load the next time they visit.
- Prioritize above-the-fold content: Load important content, such as your logo and navigation menu, first to give users a sense of progress while the rest of the page loads.
Improving the Shopify store’s speed can help create a better user experience for your customers.
CTA buttons should be polished
When designing a website, the Call-to-Action (CTA) button is essential to make or break the user experience. A polished CTA button can entice visitors to take the desired action on your website, while an unpolished one can
lead to frustration and confusion.
A polished CTA button should be visually appealing and stands out from the page. It should be easily clicked and provides clear action to the user on what action to take next. Displaying your CTA button will help you achieve the goal of constantly pushing your visitors to purchase and improve your conversion rate.
To optimize your call-to-action button for mobile sites, consider the following:
- Keep it visible and easy to find
- Make sure it’s large enough for users to tap with their fingers
- Use contrasting colors to make it stand out
- Keep the text short and actionable (e.g., “Buy Now” or “Sign Up”)
- Test different button placements and designs to see what works best for your audience.
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Add notifications that convert visitors into customers.
Change the font size for better mobile visibility
Despite the limited space that mobile devices provide or display, you still need to showcase important information about your products/services.
A small font size might be hard to read and may discourage visitors from shopping on your site. To improve mobile visibility, try increasing the font size to at least 16 pixels or higher. This will ensure that your content is easily readable on smaller screens.
In addition, some conventional fonts are easier to read on mobile devices than others. Sans-serif fonts like Arial and Helvetica are more legible on smaller screens. Further, a responsive design will adjust your website’s font size and layout based on the screen size.
Consider the amount of text carefully
Mobile users are impatient and want to find things quickly without wasting time. If you have too much information on your website, that will slow down their search and increase the bounce rate.
If you sell multiple products, consider creating multiple columns to separate them and make it easy to find the product.
To optimize the amount of text for a mobile site, consider using shorter paragraphs, bullet points, concise headings, and other elements on your site design. Avoid using large blocks of text and unnecessary details. Focus on providing the most essential information clearly and concisely. Also, consider using images or infographics to supplement the text and make it easier to understand.
Try to avoid using too many pop-ups
Popups are a great way to capture visitors’ attention that helps increase email subscribers, notify them about sales, remind them about cart abandonment, and many more. But too many popups can be annoying.
Popups are a common feature on many websites and can effectively capture user attention or promote a call to action. However, it’s important to balance using popups and not overwhelm your users with too many.
In addition, too many popups can slow down your website and negatively impact your visitors. Irrelevant popups can cause frustration and drive users from your website. To ensure a positive user experience, it’s best to use popups sparingly and strategically. Consider using them only when necessary, such as promoting a limited-time offer or capturing email addresses for a newsletter.
Keeping the limited number of popups can improve the overall experience and turns visitors into customers with relevant ones.
Correct if any layout shifts
Poor site structure or using JavaScript on your website can cause layout shifts that can cause a negative user experience.
Here are some tips to correct the layout shifts:
- Use fixed dimensions for consistently sized elements, such as images and videos, to avoid unexpected changes in size.
- Compress large files like images and videos to make sure they’re incorrect dimensions,
- Avoid inserting content above existing content, which can cause unexpected shifts. Instead, insert new content below existing content.
- Use CSS transitions or animations to create smooth transitions between states rather than abrupt changes that can cause layout shifts.
Optimize your checkout process for mobile devices.
While you want your entire website to be mobile-friendly, optimizing your checkout pages and process for mobile devices is also crucial. Here are a few things to keep in mind for your checkout process on mobile devices:
- Simplify the checkout process by removing any unnecessary steps
- Use large, easy-to-click buttons to make it easy for customers to navigate
- Optimize your checkout form by using autofill and autocomplete features
- Ensure that your checkout page is mobile-responsive and loads quickly
- Mobile payments such as Apple Pay and Google Wallet make checkout easier for customers.
Optimizing the checkout pages and process can increase the chances of completing their purchase and bring more sales.
Make proper use of mobile forms
When it comes to mobile forms, it’s vital to ensure that they are designed in a user-friendly and efficient way. As many businesses use mobile forms as the primary conversion on their website, making it more effective and easy to use can lead to a better experience for visitors.
Here are some tips to help you make proper use of mobile forms:
- Keep the form as short as possible, only including the necessary fields
- Use clear and concise language for instructions and labels
- Use appropriate input fields for the type of information being collected
- Ensure that the form is optimized for mobile devices
- Test the form thoroughly before implementing it to ensure that it functions properly.
Common Mistakes to Avoid in Shopify Mobile Optimization
- Ignoring Mobile Optimization
- Slow Mobile Load Times
- Poor Mobile Navigation and User Experience
- Not Optimizing Images for Mobile
- Not Testing on Mobile Devices
Conclusion
Optimizing your Shopify store for mobile devices is crucial in improving your customer’s shopping experience and increasing sales. The best way to optimize the Shopify site is to build the website by keeping the mobile site in mind from the start.
In addition, Google also gives priority to mobile-first approach sites and customers’ shopping experiences. Following the tips outlined in this guide, such as using responsive design, simplifying navigation, and optimizing page load times, ensure your store is mobile-friendly and accessible to all potential customers.
Remember to test your Shopify site regularly and check out reports on Google Analytics to make adjustments to continue providing a seamless experience to your mobile visitors. Further, optimizing your Shopify store is one of the digital marketing strategies that help improve business reputation, mobile experience, and site speed and bring new potential sales opportunities.
