Unstoppable growth of mobile internet’s popularity caused Google to introduce ’Mobilegeddon’, an algorithm update, designed to boost mobile friendly pages. From this moment on, responsive websites have officially received higher search engine ranking.
Of course, this is not the only reason why webmasters should opt for responsive website layouts. According to Criteo’s report, mobile purchases in US grew 10% in 2015. In South Korea and Japan mobile transactions consist more than 50% of all e-commerce purchases.
Web designers recognized these trends and introduced responsive layouts early on. Most popular e-commerce companies used to have separate mobile copies of their desktop websites. Today this concept is outdated, and most webmasters decide to deliver their content through single URL address. This can be done with the use of special web design feature that adapts website content for mobile browsers. Making e-commerce website responsive requires designers and webmasters to focus on many navigational, programming and content details.
Before you start
Successful responsive design implementation starts with determining business and development goals. E-commerce webmasters should also conduct a little research to determine consumers’ behavioral patterns and device preferences. Before introducing changes to their website’s layout, they should:
- Determine how much mobile traffic their website receives?
- Analyze consumers’ behavior on website pages?
- Determine which devices, OSs and browsers customers favor?
Choosing the right CMS
Most popular content management systems offer different responsive layouts. It is hard to tell, which CMS is the right one. Some e-commerce entrepreneurs use combination of WordPress and Woo Commerce plugin, but most experienced webmasters decide to run their online retail business through Magneto platform. This open-source CMS is backed by many hard-working Magento developers, who are constantly creating new responsive layouts and themes and finding innovative ways for retailers to present their merchandise.
Content strategy changes
E-commerce platforms feature tones of useful content, including: product pages, manuals, niche-specific articles, videos and graphics. Introducing responsive layout will deeply influence website’s content strategy. Webmasters shouldn’t post high-resolution 360 degree images, articles that contain more than 1,000 words and long tutorial videos.
Adapting website’s code and graphics
Since responsive websites use the same adaptable code, they might need more time to load. Since slow loading can discourage website’s visitors and downgrade its user experience, web designers need to address this issue with the set of innovative measures, including:
- Introducing ‘lazy loading’ feature because it creates the perception of faster performance;
- Rendering images to perfectly fit mobile browsers;
- Changing website’s code in order to reduce its latency;
- Replacing custom fonts with open web ones in order to decrease page weight;
- Using CDN third party acceleration in order to optimize website’s performance;
Responsiveness is just the beginning
In order to draw more mobile users to their websites, e-commerce webmasters need to constantly work on their design and optimization. These are some other criteria that also determines the number of mobile visitors:
- Good timing- most people use their mobiles and tablets during their commute (7 am – 9 am) and in the evening hours (8 pm – 10 pm), so these are the times when most mobile conversions happen;
- Mobile app introduction- many online stores decide to develop specialized mobile apps, since most mobile users prefer them to regular internet browsing;
- AdWords and Facebook Ads targeting filters- both of these digital advertising platforms allow users to target customers in accordance to devices, apps, browsers and mobile Oss they use.
Responsive website is not a guarantee of success, but it is definitely the way for companies to expand their consumer base. One of the most important principles of successful implementation of RWD is a constant focus on small screen. Mobile view shouldn’t be a stripped down version of a desktop website. Its creation leads through prioritizing functions and organizing information more efficiently. The bottom line is that mobile users should be able to perform all actions, which are available to desktop users and they should enjoy pretty and harmonic website design, while doing it.