It's no surprise that mobile traffic's again on the rise. Well done to all employers who have optimised for mobile. Remember you're going to be getting mobile traffic whether you want to or not, so it's not something you can ignore. Between phones and tablets almost 25% of our total users are visiting from mobile devices. With this sort of growth it's likely that employers will have to cater for mobile applications in the future. We'll be looking out for any first movers over the next 12 months.
Mobile Test - Finding out how you're doing
Do you think you're optimised for mobile, but not sure? Take your smart phone - start by searching for your program on Google and going through your careers site. This will give you a good idea of what 25% of your graduate traffic is experiencing.
We've also got a few useful tips that you can use to test your site for mobile:
1) Take out anything that may be frustrating for the user. This includes:
- Pop up windows - automatic ads to a mobile app that block the user from going straight to your site. Instead have a less intrusive banner ad directing them to download the app.
- Remove all features and plugins that won't show up on the users device. These are things like Flash banners that won't show on the latest versions of IOS or Android. Also try and decrease image file size as much as possible to speed up any slow data connections.
- Try to avoid having a mobile version of the site that restricts what the user can do. If you do have a mobile site separate from your desktop send tablet users to your desktop.
2) Build your site using responsive web design
This is a must for any new sites and basically takes away the need to have a separate mobile site and desktop site. Responsive web design means that your website will work well on devices of any size - it responds to the size. However if you can't rebuild your current site using responsive web design request that any new features be built in responsive CSS and HTML5.
Above - Tools that will allow you to build a responsive site.
3) Connect with the graduates and use mobile device capability
- Encourage the graduate to connect with you - even if they can't apply on mobile, e.g. allow the user to login with their Facebook, Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo accounts.
- Create a unique experience for logged in users.
- Improve sharing or social behaviour and allow the user to create unique content to share.
- Use smartphone features like camera and GPS.
- Use mobile intuitive functionality such as shaking, swiping and tapping.
This may seem like it's a long way off your current website. However it describes the websites that students are spending their time on using their mobile devices. If you can incorporate all of these points in your website and application form, you are probably starting to imagine how a mobile application process might look and that it's really not that far fetched.
Quick Mobile Spot Check Test
Use the Hub Spot Device Lab to see how your site currently looks on different mobile devices and what sort of traffic your getting from each device. - http://snippets.hubspot.com/hubspot-device-lab
Please get in touch if you have any questions on mobile. [email protected]