Tips To Make Your Auto Dealership's Mobile Website User-friendly

By Author: Nate Rodney
Total Articles: 499
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With the increasing number of smartphone users searching for or purchasing products/services online, auto dealerships cannot ignore mobile websites. Even industry experts predict that in future, more people will use mobile phones than PCs to surf the Internet. Thus, having a business website optimized for mobile phones is very important these days.

If your mobile website is not properly organized, it can make it difficult for users to access and navigate through your site, which in turn means you could lose potential customers. So, in order to avoid those things, follow the below tips that can help you to make your auto dealership's mobile website user-friendly.

Prefer using small images: Usually auto dealership websites feature high resolution images of vehicles, but when it is for mobile websites, you need to rethink that and use smaller images. Too many images increase page load times and can make the visitors abandon the site. So, design a mobile website with a few small/compressed images that enable the site to load faster on smartphones.

No flash/java scripts: Flash/java scripts are not ...
... supported by most mobile devices, including the latest versions of iPhones and iPads. They have only limited support on Android phones and few other high technology mobile devices. Moreover, flash websites are heavy and require a 3G Internet connection to open in mobile devices. So, it is always better to stick to standard websites written with HTML/CSS.

Focus on readability: Mobile screens are much smaller when compared to desktop screens. Thus, content as well as the layout for a mobile website needs to be optimized to make it mobile-friendly. Properly organize the content with readable font size, visible font color which is easy to read in both bright and low light. Use bullet points instead of large paragraphs of text. Also, make sure that you are using the same unique colors, font style, and brand banner as found in your original site, so that the users can easily recognize your business in the mobile version.

Concentrate on page width: Because mobile phone screens are small, a mobile website should utilize all the available space. However, as every mobile screen will not have the same height and width, in order to utilize all the space on different sized screens you need to use a fluid layout. You should go with the maximum page width that accommodates all the elements on the page and also make sure that it is able to format an entire HTML document.

Ensure smart navigation: Proper navigation is a vital aspect which helps users to easily go through your mobile website. Design the navigation such that the user accesses more information in less time, all while surfing fewer pages. Use vertical scrolling and avoid rollovers. Menus should be clearly defined in a hierarchy and also provide a search box, to make it easy for the user to look for content in your website. Clearly defining back and home buttons enables the user to smoothly navigate between the levels.

Quick page load time: Nothing annoys a user more than a mobile website that takes too much time to load. So, making sure that your mobile website loads quickly is essential to making it user-friendly. High resolution images, a lot of small images, buttons with a gradient or rounded corners, too many imports, etc., are a few culprits that can cause long page load times. Make sure you avoid them to give a good user experience.

Make clickable buttons big enough for fingertips: Mobile users will not have the feasibility of clicking with a device like mouse. Touch screens allow them to use fingertips to click on the buttons. If the clickable areas are very small, it can be irritating and difficult to browse through the website. So, average finger tap size should be used to make the website user-friendly. You can also use 3D effects for buttons (instead of using plain html links) to make it easy for users to recognize them.

Just implementing these tips is not enough; you need to regularly test your mobile website's performance on various mobile devices to make sure that your users are not facing any difficulty while using it. It is better to outsource your mobile website's designing and maintenance responsibility to a professional service provider who can handle it with more expertise.

Search Optics, Inc. is a leader in digital marketing solutions for the automotive industry. Search Optics interactive marketing services include custom websites, search engine optimization, paid search and mobile solutions that generate leads which result in sales opportunities. Search Optics specializes in car dealer marketing and car dealer SEO services.