Blog
You really wouldn’t have thought that in 2021 so many of these errors would be quite so common, but sadly, we keep seeing them. If you’re an eCommerce business looking to get a leg-up on the competition or just wanting to boost your online traffic, you can’t afford to neglect mobile web design in 2021. Here’s eleven of the easiest and most annoying errors, all laid out so you can avoid them on your site.
Unclear Navigation
This is just straight-up bad design. There’s no getting around it, everybody needs to have clear, straightforward navigation throughout all types of web design. Beyond that, however, when it comes to the smaller screens, trickier operation and slower loading times of mobile devices versus desktop, nobody has any time for slow, unclear navigation. Keep it clear and straightforward, your visitors will thank you later.
Hiding Content in Layouts
The issue here is that the content remains on the website but is hidden and therefore both pointless and slowing the overall site down. Not only is this obviously a waste of (hopefully) quality content, but it impacts one of the most important parts of mobile web design; page loading speeds. People expect convenience and speed from mobile websites and when they take seconds and seconds to load that immediately impacts bounce rates. Keep it clean and simple for mobile web design.
Too Many Images
Don’t get me wrong. Having plenty of high-quality images dotted throughout a great mobile web design is always going to look good, there’s no doubt about that. However, having absolutely loads of images clogging everything up and generally not looking neat and tidy is going to slow the website whilst making it look a little dated.
Unplayable Content
Sure, the videos and apps you’ve put into your site might work great on a desktop, however, if it’s in an unsupported format that doesn’t work on mobile devices, you’re obviously setting yourself up for failure here. Once again, you’re wasting time loading up useless content that serves no real purpose on your website. Stop contributing to the slow page load times! Always make sure you’re using supported formats for your content.
Incorrect Image Sizing and Definition
Whether we’re talking about an image being far too big or too small, it doesn’t actually matter. All that matters is that the image is absolutely not the right size. This makes your mobile web design look amateurish and basic. Too big will also massively slow your page loading times, contributing to a poor bounce rate. Use images that are the right size!
Stop Linking to Sites That Aren’t Mobile-Friendly!
From the perspective of functionality, from the perspective of search engines, from the perspective of good practice, it doesn’t matter. This just isn’t a great move. You need to make sure that any websites you are linking out to are properly mobile optimised.
Having properly mobile optimised web design is always going to look great to search engines. It’s a powerful way to make yourself look professional and up-to-date. However, when you link out to other sites that aren’t properly optimised, this is only going to reflect poorly on your site.
Separate Mobile Web Design URLs in 2021?!
Yes, we keep seeing this in 2021. In 2021! No one should be doing this anymore. One URL for your site, don’t split all your SEO traffic efforts between multiple URLs when you can just have one great website. This is exactly why responsive mobile web design is so vital for every website nowadays, even more so if you’re based in eCommerce. Keep things simple and focused with a single URL. Streamlining like this will also help your marketing budget go further, another win!
Bad Touch Targets
This is an absolutely ancient problem that won’t seem to go away! When it comes to mobile web design, you need to be thinking about smaller screen sizes. That means sometimes tiny little devices with minuscule screens. Don’t create a website that’s only mobile-friendly to phablets and above. You need sizable touch targets that are easy for everyone to use on every device. That’s exactly what being responsive mobile web design is all about.
Too Much Text is Bad Mobile Web Design in 2021
No one wants to spend any real amount of time reading paragraph after paragraph of copy on your website via their mobile. Unless you’re specifically a news source, that is. Otherwise, keep things as simple and engaging as possible. That means a sensible and functional amount of text. Don’t go crazy with it, as tempting as it may be is to have loads of text on your homepage.
You might have cut away a lot of images and content from your desktop design and want to leave your optimised and perfectly crafted copy in place. Don’t! It’s just going to dominate and occupy far too much space. Re-do the copy if you have to, but don’t overload the mobile web design with a ton of text.
Antisocial Mobile Web Design in 2021?!
Lastly, I’m going to talk about antisocial mobile web design. That’s right, social media. It’s always essential, but never more so than when it comes to the devices where the vast majority of people do their social media scrolling, mobiles. If you fail to implement easy sharing icons and links out to your business’s social media presence, you’re going to be wasting potential followers, shares and other benefits.
You want people to see a product on your site, think of someone else and see an easily located sharing button. Look at Amazon and other eCommerce sites share icons. They’re everywhere! Without being intrusive, of course. The same goes for links out to social media pages. These are both hugely necessary. Get them on your mobile site.
