Techblog
Is your business website mobile-friendly? Here’s what you must do
Savvy and demanding customers use mobile devices for practically everything, including researching, comparing and buying products. Making your website mobile friendly isn’t just desirable, it’s an absolute must.
In today’s ever-connected world, consumers are savvier and more demanding than ever. They also prefer to use their mobile devices over desktops to research, compare and buy products.
Search engine giant Google knows this very well. Its job is to offer the very best search results to customers. If customers are using mobile devices, Google adjusts its search results accordingly.
It may even penalise you for not having a mobile-friendly page, as its ranking algorithm is designed to give a push to mobile-friendly pages in Google’s mobile search results.
It's no longer a case of whether having a mobile-friendly website is good to have. It’s a must, now, if you want to reach customers.
If you’re not there yet, here’s what you need to do to make your website mobile-friendly:
Use mobile option on CMS platforms
The most popular website content management systems (CMS), including Wordpress or Wix, have options to make your page mobile-friendly without needing two separate versions.
In some cases, an update to the latest version will automatically make your site mobile-friendly, including adding crucial security upgrades.
Make it simple, remove clutter
Having a good platform is important. But the great results will depend on the layout.
People won’t stay on your landing page if they can’t find what they’re looking for within seconds. Make sure your website is clean and organised. Always provide a search function or clear navigation.
Too many bells and whistles will make your site load more slowly. They will also distract customers from your key messages.
Readability is even more crucial on mobile devices. Remember zooming-in needs a second hand.
Make your site thumb friendly
That brings us to the next important aspect of a mobile-friendly website: thumb-friendliness. People often use their smart devices with one hand. Make sure your site's users can get to where they need to go by using just their thumb.
Design your buttons or clickable links to be large enough so that users don't have to zoom in just to perform an action.
Scale it up
Your text and graphics need to be big enough and sufficiently optimised for smart device users. Depending on the CMS you're using some graphics will need to specifically created for mobile. When it comes to text you could either increase the size for mobile or make it easily zoomable by the user on their device.
Use high-res images
On your website high-resolution images are really important for the user’s experience and help avoid blurry images. On your mobile site though high-res images can increase page load time. Kissmetrics have found that 40% of users will leave a site if it takes longer than three-seconds to load. By optimising your images - compressing them as much as possible without loosing their sharpness - you will reduce load time.
Don’t forget to test
Once you’ve built your mobile-friendly website, make sure you test everything, including links and buttons. Test the page on different types of device. If you can, ask others to test your website and give feedback on their user experience.
People are using their mobiles to search, compare and purchase goods. Make it easy for them:
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Use a CMS that automatically creates mobile friendly pages.
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Make sure your website is clean and organised to avoid slow loading.
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Ensure users can get to where they need to go using just their thumb.
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Use high-resolution images.
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Don’t forget to test everything – on different devices.