The number of mobile device users is increasing rapidly and their online activity has made the mobile market a prominent market segment your website can get customers and visitors from. Research in recent years indicate an explosive expansion in mobile browsing within a few short years and as a website owner you should definitely consider those mobile users as your visitors & potential customers. A recent survey finds that approximately 50% of new Internet connections originated from cell phones and this number is doubling every day.

Mobile browsing and searches have their own sets of rules and rules vary for desktop computers or laptops. To tap into the potential mobile market segment your site should be fully optimized for the mobile devices. Following are 5 tips on optimizing your website for mobile viewing and searches:

1. Support market leading mobile devices:

Implementing cross-browser compatibility and support for major market-leading mobile devices is harder than implementing it for desktop sites. You should not expect a universal standard for all the mobile devices and that’s why it’s important to target market leading mobile devices and devices that your visitors will be using.

2. Optimize for the “Least”:

Don’t expect all your visitors and customers have the latest technology and the fastest connection. Since technology changes pretty fast and not everyone is ready to cope with the changes, you should consider both cutting edge and the technologies that are several generations behind. Optimize your mobile site so that it runs smoothly on the slower connections as well.

3. Optimize for sort keywords:

PC users use longer keywords and key phrases to narrow search results. But on mobiles, users have a tendency to search with 1-2 keyword(s) to get their search results. For your mobile site, explore what predictive suggestions for your niche exist and optimize for them to stay at the top of search results.

4. Promote for Mobile search:

Promote your site in mobile search engines, mobile portals and directories. This will increase the mobile traffic to your website. Promoting your site for mobile friendly portals & directories is as important as it for the web portals and directories. For a website, staying at a top SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) position only for PC is insufficient; rather, they should stay at the top SERP positions to tap into the huge mobile market segments.

5. Re-write for mobile users:

Do you use the same content for your mobile site as you do for your PC site version? According to most mobile net users, there should be a different content version for mobile phones. Those contents should be specific, easy to read and should comprise only the necessary information. Mobile screens can only show a small amount of text at a time and most users won’t scroll through to continue reading unless they really need to do so. Keep your text concise and punchy to present the most important and relevant information to your customers.