In 2016, mobile web traffic finally surpassed desktop/laptop web traffic. But even though people are using their smartphones and tablets to access the web more often than desktop or laptop or computers, they still prefer to use desktops or laptops to actually complete purchases. Conversion rates for mobile devices remain relatively low compared to how much internet time people spend on them. The following tips can help your business boost your mobile conversion rates to see more sales being finalized on these devices.

Why are mobile conversion rates lowe in the first place?

Before getting into tips for boosting conversion rates, it’s helpful to have a good understanding of why they’re low in the first place. Mobile device users cite a number of reasons for not shopping on their mobile devices. The first is poor navigation. Many online stores have websites that aren’t optimized for mobile. This makes it hard to find what they’re looking for and all the pinching and zooming to try to read text that’s too small becomes tiresome. A related reason is difficulty in typing in the delivery address and payment information. For non-mobile-optimized sites, fields are small and difficult to type in. Even with mobile optimized sites, the numbers/letters on their small touch screen are close together and many prefer typing on an actual keyboard to complete purchases. Finally, there are security concerns. People are starting to overcome the fear of transmitting credit card info over the internet when it comes to computers and laptops but many still have security concerns doing this from mobile devices because mobile optimized sites often don’t have the screen real estate to display secure payment logos that make them feel safe.

Now that you have a basic understanding of why many mobile users don’t complete purchases on their mobile devices, here are some tips for changing that.

Improved navigation

One of the most straightforward and important things you need to do is get a mobile optimized website if you don’t already have one. This not only makes the text larger and easier to read, it offers simplified navigation so your customers have an easier time accessing the necessary information that they will need to complete a purchase without visiting a competitor’s site or waiting until they’re sitting at a computer.

Ease of typing

Setting up your website to allow for auto-fill data is another thing you can do to boost your conversion rates. If customers agree to save their address, phone number, and credit card info in their browser, this data can auto fill in the relevant fields so they only have to click on the field they want to fill out. Another option is to allow returning customers to create an online profile on your site that securely stores their personal info. This way, after they’ve completed one purchase, they can return to the mobile version of your site on their smartphone and quickly sign in and complete purchases without having to fill in their address and card info again.

Security concerns

To allay your customer’s fears that the card info isn’t secure on your site, consider partnering with a third party payment service like Paypal that your customers already trust. It’s also another way to simplify the purchasing process since many customers will already have their payment into stored with these third party payment service providers and can simply login to complete a purchase.

Getting to the sale

Of course, before you can get conversions, you need to be sending effective and relevant mobile-based advertisements in the first place. A good place to start is with SMS marketing since it’s immediate, inexpensive, and has excellent open and click-through rates.