We don’t think enough about how to increase mobile conversion rate. Conversion rate is usually a lot lower on mobile than desktop because people don’t design mobile-first. The way we browse on our phones is different than how we browse websites on desktop. Your mobile designs need to account for that!
Think about the classic desktop call-to-action (CTA) button placement. You put your CTA button in the top right corner of the screen. Most people then keep that in their mobile design. But that doesn’t make sense. Your mobile visitors are using their thumbs to scroll and tap as they read. So why would you put the button you most want them to push as far from their thumbs as you can get???
Instead, you need to include a CTA button in the lower right corner of your mobile website. That’s right where most people can easily reach it. (Sorry left-handers! You’ll have to reach a little more.)
My experience
I first experimented with this 4 or 5 years ago. I added a click-to-call button to our site’s mobile version. Mobile conversion rate shot up 150%! Just from this one change. I saw similar results from the other sites I added it to. I’ve noticed more websites doing this recently, so I think it’s fair to say they’re seeing success as well.
Be creative with this one! I did a simple click-to-call button, but you can make one more interactive. I’m upgrading this idea for an ecommerce site template I’m designing now. I’m gamifying the free shipping threshold. I included a progress bar that fills up as you get closer to the cart amount that unlocks free shipping. You can still click on the shopping cart icon in the button right, but you can also see your progress and cart total in the rest of the bar.
This would be a great tactic for shopping apps like InstaCart who have a minimum purchase requirement.
Usability issues
Advertisers ruin everything, don’t we? The same is true here. I ran a usability test for this feature recently. It failed pretty badly. The reason? People are starting to filter out elements at the bottom of their mobile screen because advertisers keep putting irrelevant ads there. So now, anything that looks like an ad gets labeled as ‘irrelevant’ and filtered out by your brain. I even used motion on this (legitimate) element. People still filtered it out. Crazy!
Take two precautions so you don’t get caught in this new “mobile banner blindness”.
- Make sure it doesn’t look like an ad and the visitor has plenty of opportunity to notice it.
- Replicate the functionality. Keep your cart icon in the upper right corner AND the lower right.
Increase your mobile conversion rate
Get creative with this one! There’s plenty of WordPress plugins if you’re DIY-ing this. You can use them to add pretty much anything.
Ideas you’d like to share? Questions? Reach out!
