Nothing says change and moving forward better than transitioning from a traditional physical store to an e-commerce store. If you chose Magento then you’ve already made managing and developing your e-commerce store easier for yourself. Increasing your visibility and website ranking is easier when you’re working with a feature-rich platform that’s highly customizable and SEO-friendly.
However, as an entrepreneur, you’ve probably noticed that mobile e-commerce traffic has been increasing, and because of this wave, mobile optimization has also grown.
In 2020 alone, mobile e-commerce sales increased to 33.6% at $778 billion. This year, eMarketer projects further growth to reach $907 billion with an uptick of 13.7%.
Connection speed for the average mobile user in the US has increased in the last 10 years. But Internet connection isn’t the only factor that allows speedy, frictionless experiences for mobile shoppers.
Lucrative opportunities from this growth can only be gained through a high-performing website; your online store must deliver on speed because mobile shoppers require fast responses.
Can your Magento-powered online store achieve this goal?
Although e-commerce websites built on Magento have access to rich capabilities, including a thousand or so third-party extensions, you still need to make certain adjustments to make your site mobile friendly or turn your online store into a mobile app to effectively capture more mobile revenue. The former will allow you to speed up your online store and increase your website ranking in search results.
How to optimize your online store on Magento?
Here are ways you can further optimize your online store’s speed and build a better mobile experience for your users.
#1. Have a responsive and beautiful web design
The world has 4.72 billion Internet users, and 92.8 percent of those use mobile devices to access the web. Desktops and laptops continue to be an important medium for people, but now, people can use multiple platforms at the same time.
If a user visits your website on their phone or tablet, and a part of the design isn’t displaying some of your products, or some elements are hard to click, they will leave out of frustration. A mobile-friendly design delivers a frictionless experience for every shopper.
#2. Make it easy to navigate
Users won’t spend time learning how to use your website. The moment they enter your site, it should be easy for them to know what to do and find what they need. Your e-commerce store shouldn’t only look beautiful, it should also offer a seamless journey for the user.
At the most basic level, your visitors should be able to find important elements, like the main menu, shopping cart, search bar, pages, blog, and links.
Sometimes, you may not have the space to include all the pages or tabs that can be viewed on the desktop version of your site, this is because navigational features are often limited in mobile design.
Make sure that the important pages of your website are easily accessible. This will push visitors to stay on your website longer.
#3. Speed it up
A page should load in less than 3 seconds; less than two would be perfect. Every second counts for e-commerce sites because a moment’s delay will interrupt the buying process.
Here are some things you can do to improve loading time:
• Optimize image size. Reduce heavy images and convert them to small files. You can use tools like TinyPNG that will let you resize images without the need to install an application.
• Remove unnecessary JavaScript or any elements that will take time to load.
• Minimize redirects.
#4. Have an intuitive checkout process
When a user lands on your e-commerce store, the goal is to move them toward the checkout cart and get them to buy your items. For this to be a success, you need to have a checkout process that’s optimized for mobile.
Unlike normal websites, e-commerce stores can process orders, and fulfill payments, among other things. This means that collecting information from customers from point A to point B should be as intuitive as possible.
Screens in mobile devices are small compared to desktops, which means that your content should be straightforward, elements like buttons should be clear, and your forms should always be easy to fill out. If it’s hard for a user to fill out the fields, or the pages keep re-formatting, the customer will find it annoying and will likely exit your store.
#5. Get rid of annoying popups and ads
Popups inform customers about an offer that they’re sure to be interested in. But if it's a regular thing and starts to be invasive, it will frustrate shoppers.
This is why Google is now onto websites that have invasive popups.
Google is making user-experience a priority, and it sees annoying popups as something that creates a negative experience for users. Sites with these will be shown less on the search results.
#6. Keep heavy content to a minimum
Content is an important part of any e-commerce business. It’s the driving force behind SEO and it engages your audience. It also spreads awareness and educates potential customers about your business and products.
But too much can slow down your website, especially if it’s being viewed on mobile.
Take the time to review your content on mobile. See if it’s quick to load and if it shows up perfectly. Check if there’s too much white space, too many blocks, or if the spacing isn’t right. Then fix as you see fit.
#7. Enable CSS/JavaScript minification
Magento 2 comes with a built-in feature that allows you to minify CSS/JS files. Why minify? The process removes unnecessary space from the source code and reduces bandwidth requests, making it one of the best practices for optimizing page load.
To minify, however, you need to switch to production mode because enabling it doesn’t work on developer mode.
#8. Check your third-party extensions
Magento extensions can help you monitor and track sales, manage inventories and manage your customer service operations through a centralized system. But some may not be needed to run your online store on Magento.
These extensions may also be weighing down your website on mobile devices. Run an audit and figure out which ones are affecting your online store’s mobile performance. Choose extensions that have proven to boost your sales or improve your operations.
Another frontend optimization work you may want to do involves file compression. GZIP allows you to compress files, including fonts and external scripts. Do this when the CSS/JS compression is enabled and test it on Google PageSpeed Insights to make sure your website doesn’t suffer from downtime.
Optimize for mobile conversions
Users are shopping through their mobile devices, and they expect seamless experiences — from browsing the products and getting detailed information to checking out without delays.
Magento does come with features that limit friction for shoppers. But you can still improve page loading times and optimize speed on the platform.
Combine a few other approaches to ensure a speedy online store that satisfies user experiences — every single time. With an e-commerce platform that allows optimization tweaks and more strategies on your end, your store performance on mobile may improve and deliver on ROI targets.