Earn more from mobile: 3 rules and 6 best practices

However important mobile is to your business today, it will become even more critical tomorrow.

That's true whether you’re blogging about your favorite sports team, building the site for your community theater, or selling products to potential customers. Your visitors simply must have a great experience when they visit your site on their mobile devices.

Research has found that 61% of users will leave a mobile site if they don’t see what they are looking for right away. 

Sites that are not mobile-friendly expect users to pinch, slide, and zoom in order to consume content. It’s a frustrating experience when users expect to find the information they’re looking for right away, but are presented with obstacles to obtain that information. This is what causes users to abandon sites. 

To create a mobile-friendly site, follow these three rules:

1. Make it fast. Research shows that 74% of people will abandon a mobile site that takes more than 5 seconds to load.
2. Make it easy. Research shows that 61% of users will leave a mobile site if they don’t find what they're looking for straight away.
3. Be consistent across screens. Make it easy for users to find what they need no matter what device they're using.

It's also important to think about your ads when you're designing or fine-tuning your mobile-friendly site. Focus on creating a flow between your content and your ads for the ultimate user experience and maximum viewability. Consult your analytics data and set events to track and understand where your users are most receptive to ads.

Here are some mobile-friendly ad best practice tips:

1. Swap out the 320x50 ad units for 320x100 for a potential RPM increase.
2. Place a 320x100 ad unit just above the fold.
3. Use the 300x250 ad unit below the fold (BTF) mixed in with your content.
4. Prevent accidental clicks on enhanced features in text ads by moving ad units 150 pixels away from your content.
5. Consider using responsive ad units, which optimize ad sizes to screen sizes and work seamlessly with your responsive site.  
6. Test your site. Pick the metrics that matter most to you – then experiment with them.

The ad experience on your site should be designed with your mobile users in mind, just like the site itself. 

There are many ways to improve your users’ mobile experience on your site. Download the AdSense Guide to Mobile Web Success today, and find out more on how to make mobile a major asset to your business.

Posted by: 

Chiara Ferraris

Publisher Monetization Specialist

@chiara_ferraris