If you’re an affiliate marketer who heavily relies on good website design to attract visitors, there’s no question that you need a mobile version of your site done properly.
According to Stat Counter Global Stats, 34 percent of worldwide internet traffic comes from mobile as of December 2014. In December 2013, it was only around 23 percent. The numbers keep growing and you can’t ignore that.
To help you through the process, you can follow this simple checklist on how to create a mobile version of your website:
- Pick from three approaches: Responsive, Dynamic Serving or Separate.
- Choose Responsive Design if you want the URL, HTML, and other parts of the page to remain the same. Only the browser width is adjusted to accommodate different mobile devices.
- Choose Dynamic Serving if you want the URL to be constant, but the HTML and CSS vary depending on what the mobile device is requesting.
- Choose Separate if you want an independent mobile site. You can either choose to have the same URL or a completely separate one. With the latter, your options are limitless.
- Pick a content management system or CMS that is user-friendly, especially if this is your first time to create a mobile website. WordPress is highly recommended for beginners.
- Buy a premium theme that fits your gaming affiliate site best. Go to Elegant Themes, PressCoders or WooThemes to buy premium themes.
- If you don’t like WordPress, you can go for a custom WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) CMS, which are fairly cheap. The best ones out there are Wix and SquareSpace.
- Figure out which elements of your desktop site you’d need to have on the mobile site. To determine this, use web analytics tools to see what are the elements that the visitors resonate with the most. Try tools like CrazyEgg.
- Decide if you want to run ads on your mobile site. Do note that ads slow down loading time, which directly affects user experience.
- Run a speed test to check your mobile site’s loading time. Adjust as necessary.
- Determine the content path or layout that visitors take. Keep it simple.
- Allow enough space for the finger in between the links. The recommended space is 28×28 pixels around the link.
- Use drop down menus. They are great at minimizing navigation on a mobile site.
- Keep text to a minimum. For one, long articles must be broken down and placed on different pages to avoid slowing down the site. Next, touch screen devices will have an onscreen keyboard that pops up. This can hide a big chunk of text and make the site load slower too.
- Add user-friendly mobile features. If you include your phone number, make it a click-to-call button. If you post your email, make it a click-to-compose email.
- Test your mobile site on the most used and popular devices today. Size varies from one device to another.
- Get your mobile site running and use mobile analytics to see how your mobile site is doing.
- Don’t forget to ask feedback from visitors and see what needs to be improved.
There you go, that’s 18 easy-to-follow steps on how to create a mobile version of your gaming affiliate site. Hopefully, you’ll be able to expand your reach and attract more visitors soon.