Just quickly looking something up or ordering on your mobile, who doesn't do it? Unfortunately, a vast number of online stores and B2B webshops are still not suitable for this. Because the website is not displayed properly on the small screen, users get a negative experience earlier. Do you stay on a page where half doesn't fit on the screen? Probably not. The bounce rate of the webshop increases and visitors do not return here, because "the website doesn't work anyway." As a result, your website will be less findable via Google on smartphones, resulting in many missed sales opportunities. Curious about how to optimize your webshop for the small screen? Below, we provide some examples you can get started with immediately!
Responsive web design
A commonly used method is responsive web design (RWD). Webshops designed with RWD display text, images, and other content correctly in the right screen format. The webshop scales per screen format. This way, you can adjust the 'look' of your content, so it is easy to view on a mobile and/or tablet. All content only needs to be loaded once for smartphone, tablet, and desktop.
Adaptive web design
Another technology is adaptive web design. An adaptive web design (AWD) is very similar to responsive web design. However, there are some differences between the two. Firstly, an RWD scales smoothly, while an AWD scales in steps. A more important difference is that AWD takes the device itself into account, while RWD only considers the screen format.
An important advantage of AWD compared to RWD is that you can consider bandwidth with AWD. For example, via AWD you can choose to display images on a smartphone and/or tablet at a lower resolution. You show different content on a smaller screen than in the desktop version. However, more screen formats are continually being added (think of the different smartphones and tablets), which is a disadvantage for AWD. It is difficult, in fact, to take every existing screen format into account. The combination of AWD with RWD could provide a solution.
When do you use which technique?
Which technique you use to make your webshop mobile-friendly depends on what you want your mobile user to experience. Can the conversion occur directly via the mobile device or should the user return later via a computer or laptop? There is no clear trend that determines which technique is best for your webshop. Each major webshop has its own method to display content as effectively as possible. So think carefully about which strategy you want to pursue. Certainly keep the following tips in mind:
- If you want your webshop to look good regardless of the device, have your webshop developed responsively.
- If you have specific requirements to give mobile users an even better experience, ensure your webshop is adaptive.
Test your site
Google understands that not all websites are immediately mobile-friendly and therefore helps many webmasters a lot of the way. Google has created a guide explaining how you optimize your mobile website. Curious if your website or webshop is already well displayed on a smaller screen? On this page of Google, you can check this immediately.
Make your website mobile-friendly
We can't make more of it. The already implemented updates that Google made have already had an impact, and we expect this is just the beginning. In the long run, everyone will have to believe it, so you too. You don't want to miss a sales opportunity, right? The importance of a good mobile website is greater than ever.
Curious which solution best suits your needs? Then contact us, we would be happy to advise you!
