You know what mobile readiness means for “regular” companies that are established. They’re all hustling to abide by Google’s algorithm update requirements, fixing mobile versions of their website, apps, and re-learning just how important responsive design is. However, mobile readiness is something any business or entrepreneur with an online presence needs to address. Right now, about half of all American web surfers use a mobile device as their go-to hardware. In the next couple of years, that number will creep up to over half. This means the vast majority of people are going to be browsing your site on mobile devices and maybe even more depending on your demographics.
Mobile readiness can make or break any business, but particularly one that’s as shaky as a crowdfunding campaign. Relatively speaking, mobile readiness isn’t very tough. It’s simply ensuring that your online presence displays quickly and beautifully on every platform and browser. Hopefully the campaign platform you choose is mobile ready (the big ones are), but there are still things you can do for your website, blog, or any other site you control:
- Get your visuals downsized
There are many things that can slow down a website like your web host, someone’s internet connection, and of course the design of the site. Visuals like videos and high resolution images take a long time to load because they’re so big. You want to give your visitors quality, but not by giving up speed. Mobile devices can be even slower to load, yet people expect them to load faster than their laptop/desktop counterparts. Make sure your website visuals are reasonably sized and tested so they display well on mobile devices.
- People want to support you on the go
Your Kickstarter campaign is probably just one means of looking for funding, investors and supporters. If someone wants to donate money, buy a product or query you about other investment opportunities, make it easy for them. It’s tough on a mobile device to go through complicated forms, especially when the investor is waiting in line for coffee. Secure one-click support where you can and avoid pop-ups or lengthy forms.
- Your content needs to be snackable
Depending on your crowdfunding platform, you might not have a very high word count for your narratives—and that’s a good thing. Keep it short and sweet. When people are browsing websites on mobile devices, they don’t have the time or the patience to dig into lengthy texts. Instead, pepper in memes, infographics, and short videos. Keep your text under five sentence per paragraph and embrace white space.
- You have less time to catch eyes
Whether people are looking at your website, your social media page or your Kickstarter page, mobile readiness means it’s more critical than ever to grab their attention from the start. You have a lot of competition, and it’s even steeper if your competition is mobile savvy. Think of it like speed dating. If you want to snag the biggest fish there, you need to step up your game. You may want to consider an app or mobile website version yourself.
- SEO is critical
If you haven’t heard of the latest Google algorithm update from April 21, it’s pretty simple: Google has promised to slap manual penalties on websites that don’t abide by basic mobile readiness standards. Google knows everyone is going mobile and is committed to matching surfers with the best websites for their queries. If you didn’t think SEO was that important before, it certainly is now.
Mobile readiness is a movement that’s going to impact anyone with an online presence. Fortunately your campaign platform is taking care of a lot of the nuts and bolts on their end, but interested supporters will still want to check out your website. Make sure it’s just as mobile ready as the campaign platform’s.