Mobile is the place to be. Everyone is talking about. There is a lot of debate among high-powered SEOs about how best to approach mobile SEO. Whichever school of thought you adhere to, you want to at least ensure that mobile versions of your site convert optimally.

Currently mobile search doesn’t have a particularly good conversion rate. But with proper mobile conversion optimisation all that can change.

Mobile content conversion optimisation tips

First of all, never forget that mobile screens are small. They range of from roughly six inches on tablets to roughly three inches on smartphones. That’s not a lot of real estate. The manner in which you layout your content can affect conversions.

• Keep the background light. Dark colours suggest smaller space (think of dark coloured rooms vs. light coloured rooms), but they also make it difficult to read text. If you’ve got a mobile user squinting in the sun, you don’t make to make the situation worse with a dark background.
• Use images with discretion. Images enhance the overall website experience, but on a small screen you don’t want images to dominate the experience. If you want to use bigger pictures Shane Cassells recommends giving users a click-to-enlarge option.
• Keep videos to a minimum and always test them to see that they upload quickly and aren’t distorted in any way.
• Make your content extra easy to read. Take the principles of desktop readability and strip them down. Use even more bullet points, where necessary linking the points to more detailed information. Cassells recommends making the text large, as mobile searchers often have their devices at arm’s length. Use concise summaries with links to more information if necessary.

Mobile navigation conversion tips

• Make sure all your links work.
• Make allowances for stubby fingers by not bunching links together.
• Provide in-site search features. A search box is much easier to use than unwieldy menus.
• Make the content easily scrollable. That means include as much information on one page as possible – don’t overuse links.

Mobile payment conversion tips

• Sander Tamaela recommends offering different payment alternatives, as not all mobile browsers and operating systems support the same payment solutions, such as Paypal.
• Tamaela also recommends delaying the purchase until mobile users are back at their desktops or laptops. This is purely to make mobile users feel more comfortable as not everyone is reconciled to giving out sensitive banking information on their phones.