With the growth of mobile marketing we get a lot of questions on what that means for content. For the most part, content served to both your mobile visitors and desktop visitors should be identical. The primary exception is how the content is presented on each device.
As tends to occur with the advent and growth of any new medium, we have to change how we think and execute certain strategies. The new influences the old, and unless we adapt, we’ll find the old way of doing things to be less effective than they once were.
In the case of content, we know that mobile content should actually be written differently than desktop content. But wait! Didn’t I just say they shouldn’t be the same? As a matter of fact, yes, they should be. The solution is to write your content for mobile and make that your desktop content as well.
If you’ve written your content with your visitors in mind and focused on what information is needed to make a great user experience, changing your content just for mobile devices seems incredible foolhardy. On the other hand, if you’ve written your content with SEO in mind, without truly considering what your visitors need, it’s equally foolhardy to put that content on either your mobile site or the desktop site. [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=”@StoneyD”]Content developed for your visitors is the content they need, regardless of the device.[/inlinetweet]
But making desktop content more mobile has everything to do with making it more accessible. Everything with user experience marketing comes down to just that: Accessibility.
[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]One of the key differences in desktop vs. mobile content is the presentation of the content.[/inlinetweet] Mobile screens are smaller and text has to be bigger in comparison to other design elements. Content on mobile devices also benefits from content chunking. None of this requires significant rewriting of content, but it does require rethinking to how it is presented.
If your mobile content is done right, it will be accessible for all mobile users. Moving that accessibility to the desktop is just another step to ensuring that your visitors are able to consume and digest your content in the easiest way possible, regardless of the device they are on.
Making content skimmable and scannable (read: accessible) has been a mantra of web marketers for years. It just took mobile to make it mandatory!