Is Your Content Mobile Ready?

Remember "Going Mobile" by The Who? Back then in 1971 it was only The Who who were going mobile but now it’s the entire world. The primary reason being the need for buyers and sellers to be able to do business even when on the move.

Mobile devices have long replaced desktops as the preferred means of accessing the Internet. Many consumers have altogether stopped using desktops for the purpose. Around a quarter of the total consumers in the U.S. access the Internet through their mobile devices, and this number is rising.

Recent studies and researches done in the mobile marketing field by media houses and marketers show that:

• Consumers spend, on an average, 94 minutes a day on mobile apps as compared to the mere 72 minutes a day spent on desktops.
• 74 percent of tablet and smartphone users make use of their phone when in need of any help with shopping.
• 9 in 10 searches on mobile lead to action, more than 50 percent of which lead to a purchase.
• 70 percent of these actions are generated in the first hour of mobile browsing itself, whereas the same amount of action takes up to a month for desktop users to generate.

Optimizing your business’s website and its apps for mobile devices is now no longer an option; it has become a necessity. For this, you need to pay as much attention to the content as to the website design and flow. Successful apps on mobile boast not only of a convenient responsive design, but also engaging content.

Important things to keep in mind when creating content for mobile apps:

1. Make Content Effective

Mobile apps typically use content for announcements, notifications, help sections to cater to user FAQs, and other queries. It is vital to stick to the primary purpose of content in order to keep it effective. What makes "great content" great is its usefulness to readers.

2. Make Content Relevant

Listen to what is being talked about in your target market to be able to stay relevant. Don’t hesitate to think about your topics from a new perspective. Remember how Robin Williams in The Dead Poet’s Society made his students stand on their desks so that they could see things from a new perspective? Stand on the desk if you have to. Approaching it from a new perspective is going to help you create fresh content that your readers will be drawn to.

3. Replace Visual with Textual Content

Consumers expect your content to load in under three seconds. The most generous of your readers may give you up to five seconds before moving on to a competitor website, but that is all. As alluring as infographics, pictorial or graphical representations, and large, flashy images may be, resist the temptation of using them on the content for mobile apps. Stay away from dynamic and elaborate visual content. Sometimes, well-written text is all that people need.

4. Ditch Adobe Flash Components

Just like large images, flash components like animations or videos must also be avoided. Apple doesn't support flash content anymore and neither does Google’s Android OS. So, instead of using Adobe Flash, you should stick to HTML 5 for creating mobile-friendly rich-media content.

5. Make Content Scannable

Merely sticking to textual content is going to be of no use if it is not delivered properly. The risk with using text-rich content is monotony. Keep the content succinct -- paragraphs crisp, language contextual, and layout coherent. The few square inches that your users have on their screen to view your content must be made use of strategically to keep them engaged. Break the content up into related paragraphs and provide catchable links for each.

6. Format the Content Well

Format the text using bullets, numbers, and bold or highlighted text to guide your readers’ sight easily towards important points. Hire a professional copywriter for developing the content you need as they will able to get the right message across with proper formatting.

7. Make Content Unique

You don’t want your content to get lost in a sea of similar content available online. Find what people are looking for and deliver such content to readers. Instead of stating facts, offer your opinions and views on the topics. Differentiating it from others will be the key to drawing more traffic towards your content.

8. Use Latest Apps to Optimize Content

There are several mobile plugins and apps available to guide you through optimizing your content for a mobile app. The WPTouch, for example, helps generate mobile optimized content for publication on WordPress.

Another useful app is the PicFrame app. This app lets you string several photographs and display them one time. For content which absolutely needs to have images included, the PicFrame app can be used to create it where your consumers don’t need to click each time to see more than one pic. There is also AudioBoo and SoundCloud, which will help you import audio to the multi-photo image created using PicFrame. Embed audio in the image and provide your readers with the option of viewing informative images and hearing related descriptive audio with just one click.

The bottom line is to create content and then deliver it appropriately, providing an incredible reading experience to consumers so that they spend more time with your content. The more time a consumer spends in engaging with your content, the more profitable it is going to be for your business.