How to Make Mobiles Love Your Content
I would put money on the fact that you’re reading this from a mobile device…
Looking at recent statistics, 86% of Twitter users access the platform from their mobile device, and 68% of Facebook profiles are using mobile to stalk people or share videos of dancing dogs.
So if you’re reading this on your Laptop or Desktop computer – you could be in the minority!
It’s incredibly important these days to create content that’s both readable on a teeny tiny smartphone (or not so small these days!) and on a large desktop screen, as that way, you’re maximising your chances of getting your content shared!
It’s also just become very VERY important, as Google is trialling their new Mobile First Index Update, which means that Mobile optimisation is going to very important to your website ranking!
So here are 3 ways of making sure Mobile devices (and Google) fall in love with your content!
You can also find many other great tidbits on our Facebook group Bamboo Zone. It’s a group dedicated to providing FREE Digital Marketing advice to Small Businesses. You can check it out here.
Test! Test! Test!
This may not be a wholly content-based point, but it’s so important that is just has to be mentioned!
You may have only just developed your website and blog, but you may not have thought about accessing it through a Mobile device?
What we would recommend is getting your blog up on as many different mobile devices as possible (iPhone, Android, Windows and Tablet) just so you can see if there is any inconsistency in your design or any drastic changes made to the layout of your content!
Short and Sweet Headline
So you’ve checked your blog and it’s safe for people to visit on their Mobile. Now you need to actually draw them in, and on Mobile, you may not have the largest amount of space…
While researching the best way to write headlines on Mobile devices, I came across a tool called Co Schedule, and their free Headline Analyser.
You enter your details and you can use it as much as you want. Input your headline, watch the analyser total up your score, and be prepared to get VERY competitive with yourself!
For example, the headline of this blog – score of 78/100! Go me!
It shows you what the best mix of language you should be using, and specific keywords that might help – and it’s free so that’s fantastic!
Aim for about 6 words and 55 characters – these are proven to increase your Click Through Rate (CTR) and won’t be truncated on Mobile devices.
Chunking
I know what you’re thinking – what on earth is Chunking?
Well, in fact, you’ve been reading it all this time!
Notice how each paragraph is quite small, and there’s not an excessive use of large words? That’s chunking!
It’s all about making your content shorter and easier to read, without comprising your content for Desktop readers.
Chunking can involve so many different features like:
- Lists (how ironic?!)
- Short paragraphs
- Whitespace
- Subheadings
- A summary
- Images
- Stylising
Only on one occasion has my writing exceeded more than one line (the beginning paragraphs if you’re interested), and I’ve used a range of sub headings and lists.
It’s so easy to do that at some point, you won’t even realise you’re doing it!
Short words
This one is going to sound like quite a patronising thing to do, but big words equal more characters, and more characters mean truncated text.
It’s not pretty.
Using smaller words to replace larger ones not only stops your audience from getting confused if you’re talking about something complicated, but it’s easier to read too!
There’s no rule for what counts as a large or small word, but if you could replace the word “Adjacent” with the word “near”, you’ve saved yourself 4 characters.
It’s not a lot of characters on this occasion, but you get the idea!
Do you have any other tips for blogs on Mobile? Share them in the comments!
