How to Make Your Site Ready for Mobile Commerce

After you open an online store, there are a few additional factors to consider if you want to optimize your site for mobile commerce (mcommerce) shoppers. Issues that may not be a problem on a desktop site, like a longer checkout process, might cause frustration for someone browsing on a smaller screen and cause them to give up on their purchase.  

Learn what makes a website mobile-friendly, how to test your site’s mobile optimization features, and why getting your site ready for mobile commerce matters for customer relationships and sales growth.

What does it mean for a website to be mobile-friendly?

Optimizing your online store for mobile commerce is just one part of making your whole website mobile-friendly. There are some common factors that affect how well a website runs on mobile devices.

Mobile-friendly design

The actual design of your website matters. Most website-building tools, including Squarespace, have some kind of mobile optimization included, so you won’t have to worry about a lot of the technical work. But, it’s helpful to understand your options, especially if you want to create a mobile-only version of your site. 

The most common design options include:

• Responsive design: Websites with a responsive design adapt to the exact size of the screen you’re using. For example, if you make your browser window smaller or larger, the website’s images and text will adjust to fit the window without compromising the site’s design. Every Squarespace website has a responsive design. 

• Adaptive design: Sites with an adaptive design are similar to the responsive option. One difference is that adaptive design has a limited set of display sizes, usually equal to common screen sizes. Sites with adaptive design automatically show you the display size that most closely matches the size of the screen you’re using.  

• Mobile-only website: A mobile-only website is a separate, simplified version of your desktop site. A “link in bio site” like an Unfold Bio Site is a low-investment way to create a mobile-only site where you can link out to products and important site features, like your contact page.

• Separate app: A standalone app can present a simplified, mobile-only version of your desktop site. Typically it’s not worthwhile for a small business owner to create an app because of the time and investment required to develop and launch one.

When it comes to optimizing your mobile experience to improve your search rankings, the most important thing is that your site is optimized for mobile use. The specific method you use to optimize your site hasn’t been shown to have a major impact on your search rank.

Visual elements that translate across devices

Your website builder might take care of displaying your images and text at a different screen size, but you’re in control of the visual experience itself. As you design your site, choose fonts and color combinations that are clear and readable so that important information or links don’t get lost on a phone or tablet screen.

Remember that an image or description that looks clear and doesn’t take up too much space on a laptop or desktop can look very different on a smaller screen. If you’re selling products, upload multiple photos to show off the details or features that make them unique. Product descriptions should fit your brand voice and include relevant details like dimensions without running on too long. 

Fast loading times

How long your site takes to load is a major factor in customer experience. Customers expect sites to load quickly, and are more likely to exit a page that’s sluggish. That slow loading time can negatively affect someone’s impression of your brand and your ability to compete in search engine results.

Squarespace websites are designed to load quickly, but your page speed also depends on what you’ve put on the page yourself. Large files or content-packed pages can drive up the size of a page and slow it down. You can speed up your site by reviewing the size of every page and identifying what may be causing slow load times. Then, either remove content or split your content into multiple, smaller pages.

If blog pages are slowing down your site, you can also consider enabling Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), which can create a simpler version of those pages for faster loading on mobile. The tradeoff with AMP is that the faster-loading version of your page won’t include all of the features and visuals the page has on a desktop browser.

Simple navigation

In addition to making your site’s navigation easy to find and read, the menu itself should make it simple to find what you need. If your site has multiple sections or your store has different categories, make those categories clear and make it easy to jump between each one. Calls to action (CTAs) should clearly state their purpose (e.g., “Add to Cart” or “Sign Up Now”) and be easy to tap into or out of.

Navigating your site should be physically simple, too—that is, if someone is holding their phone with one hand, ideally they should be able to tap into your menu and find what they’re looking for, all with one thumb. 

Mobile-friendly storefront

The mobile optimizations mentioned above will all improve your online store’s mobile experience. However, remember to address optimizations specific to mobile commerce too, like the checkout process and payment options. 

Customers should be able to quickly add items to their cart and jump to checkout. From there, the checkout process should feel intuitive and easy to complete even with limited screen space. For example, try collecting billing and shipping information in shorter, progressive steps instead of in one long form. Offer multiple ways to make a payment, including express payment options that don’t require someone to find and enter credit card information to finish checking out.

How to test your site’s mobile optimization

As you build and update your site, it’s important to test it periodically to ensure you’re still offering a good experience to mobile visitors. 

There are a few simple ways to quickly test your site:

• Use a mobile-friendly testing tool: There are several tools that allow you to type in the link to any site to analyze its mobile-friendliness. A quick search will lead you to a few popular options—and it doesn’t hurt to test your site with more than one tool.

• Test in your browser or website builder: Many website-building tools have a mobile preview option that shows you a close approximation of what your site will look like on a phone or tablet. If your site has responsive or adaptive design, you can also make your browser size smaller to see what the design looks like at different display sizes.

• Test it on a mobile device: Put yourself in the customer’s shoes by visiting your own site on a phone or tablet, and ask friends or fellow entrepreneurs to do the same. Note any drawbacks that a testing tool might not pick up on, like a cumbersome sign-up prompt or a hard-to-read CTA.

Why a mobile-friendly ecommerce website matters 

With more web browsing happening via phone and tablet and search engines more likely to rank mobile-friendly websites, having a mobile-optimized site should matter to everyone, not just ecommerce business owners. But the mobile commerce subcategory of ecommerce has grown significantly as technology has improved, with customers making trillions of dollars in mobile purchases every year. 

A site that isn’t optimized for mcommerce can lose out on its share of those purchases. An online store that loads slowly, is hard to navigate or view, and has a long checkout process on mobile creates blockers for customers that make them more likely to move on, losing you a sale and customer trust.

It’s relatively simple to design an online store for mobile commerce. Once you’ve chosen your ecommerce platform and uploaded your products, decide which parts of your site you need to optimize for mobile users and how you can improve them.