How To Optimize A Mobile App or Website To Generate Sales

Not long ago, 100% of a company’s online sales were carried out on a desktop. Today, it is estimated that over 30% of transactions, depending on the country, are carried out from a mobile device. The world is shrinking alongside our devices and the art of conversion optimization is becoming more important than ever.

In this article, we will treat an installed application and a mobile optimized webpage as the same thing. What matters is to improve and adapt our sales process to consumer’s mobile viewing habits.

Let’s analyze 3 key points that you should optimize for this new medium:

1) Determine your ultimate goal.

To correctly define our starting point, you must understand that the most important thing you can do is focus on a single goal.

Cluttering the screen with too many options can often be counterproductive. When your prospective client already knows what she wants, then you should lead the user to realize the sale.

I think that some concrete examples may help us to make this point clear:

In this first example, you can see how a company that rents apartments and holiday houses shows a list of options with a one-line text and a small image. Nothing else. They do not show details such as bedrooms, comments from other users, etc. Displaying too much information can frustrate a user and result in a delay or abandonment of their search.

In the second example, you can see a company that provides tourism related services such as airlines, car rentals, hotels, among others. They simply show items as options, without going into details. Once the users are interested, you will always have time to display more information.

To conclude this first point, you now know the importance of minimizing the details and taking things one step and one goal at a time. Once users select what they want do you offer more information, but always respecting each step.

2) Do not try to save on design.

Companies often fail to prioritize the design, opting to spend the majority of their time on the functionality of the app or website.

Personally, I think that functionality should be the top priority for any project. However, if you are dedicated to improving your conversion process then there should be a strong emphasis on design.

I believe that the perfect picture can summarize a thousand words. You can see the dangers of ignoring this from the third example below, which is a screenshot from a mobile app used by a leader in e-commerce in Latin America.

As it can be seen, the investment in the design is almost. I would like to highlight that we are not talking about a startup with only a few months of life in the market. We are talking about large companies that publicly trade and have more than 15 years of experience, which are wrongly interpreting this new channel.

Let´s turn around; let’s consider now a company that is growing and is focusing on the mobile world, they actually understand that the design (especially in such a small area) is essential:

To summarize this point let’s see what Professor Blaise Pascal said: “I have written this letter more extensive than usual because I lack the time to write it shorter.” A professional design has this effect; more is not better. It is essential to reduce the content and show only the most basic information.

By “design”, we are not only talking about images, logos, colors, among others but also about the structured design and the professional design of the mobile software.

3) Monitor Conversions and Continue Improving

Directly related to the previous point, the work does not end with the implementation of the mobile site. Launching a mobile app or website is only the beginning.

Companies have a tendency to visualize and implement a sales process then assume that all users will perfectly interpret it. This is not correct. Once the development is complete, you should begin to measure outcomes. Only the hard data will teach us if there is something to improve.

A / B testing can also be applied in this new context. With some time and testing, you realized that the more information you took out of the screen the better was the result!

If you get tired of measuring and improving your mobile development–considering it grows and develops fast in the market—then your competition will defeat you.