A new report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that in the three months to June 2013, Australians downloaded almost 20,000 terabytes of data via a mobile device.
This is a 43% increase from October to December 2012. According to Google’s Our Mobile Planet, Australia is ranked 6th (64.6%) in the world in terms of smartphone penetration.
So, with so much data being consumed by Aussie mobile and tablet users, it’s more important than ever to provide mobile-friendly content.
Luckily, it’s not too difficult. These days, most email marketing software, website management systems, blogs and social media sites make it easy.
Emails
Most popular email marketing websites, such as MailChimp and Constant Contact, automatically create a mobile-friendly version of your email. They also usually have text-version generators which create emails that don’t include any of the fancy stuff like photos and links.
Websites and blogs
If your website doesn’t automatically have a mobile version included, there are dozens of mobile website builders. Try DudaMobile or Joosee, type in your website and see it come to life on a virtual smartphone. Both offer free and paid monthly options, depending on the size of your website traffic and whether or not you want a customised URL.
Social media
All the major social networks (such as Facebook and Twitter) have native apps and mobile-friendly browser versions. Therefore, whatever content you upload is adapted to every device which accesses it. Anything hosted outside of the social network, however, might not do the same.
Our tips
- The most important thing is to do some research. Remember that some devices, such as iOS, don’t support flash, so ensure that you tailor your content keeping in mind the limitations of some smartphones and tablets
- Use smaller images. Using larger image files forces smartphone users to download unnecessarily big files. Remember, some mobile data plans can be costly
- Don’t use too much text. Mobile screens are much smaller and therefore it can be annoying for users to scroll and scroll and scroll. Try to break up the content, too, because no one likes a wall of text
If you’re still stuck and need a little help optimising your content for mobile devices, contact us today and we can help you out.