5 Tips to Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly

Mobile internet usage is now more common than desktop usage, making it more important than ever to have a mobile-friendly website. Your visitors must have a good user experience when they get to your site, otherwise they will quickly leave and this can hurt your search engine rankings. In this article we explain the key components that your site needs to be as optimized as possible for mobile usage.

How to Make a Mobile-Friendly Website

Create a Responsive Site

Creating a responsive website is the best way to make your site mobile-friendly. With this method, the information that is shown to visitors will automatically adjust according to their screen size.So they will still get to see all of the same information as desktop users. Also, Google favors responsive designs for mobile sites and this option will also help your SEO rankings. Many templates are available for creating mobile-friendly websites. You can also hire a professional to build your site for you.

Make it Quick and Easy to Find Information

Often, people take their time to browse for information on a desktop computer. But on a mobile device, they may be on the go and wanting to quickly find the information that they are looking for. Therefore, it is best to make it as easy as possible for them to find information, especially things that they would be searching for most often. These include products, contact information, the About page, and the FAQ page.

Make Button Sizes Good for Mobile Devices

When creating buttons on your website, make sure that they look good, are a good size, and are easy to use on all devices. If a button is too small, it can make it hard for a visitor to click it with their finger on mobile, especially if there are other buttons or choices next to the button. Remember to test the buttons out yourself and to have others test them out too whenever possible.

Create Easy-to-Read Fonts

Reading small fonts on a small screen can be especially difficult. Use fonts and font sizes that will be easy for your visitors to read. Test to see how your fonts look across different devices. Are they clear? Using at least a 14 pixel font size is best.  Also, use standard fonts so that your visitors will not need to wait for their browsers to download a special font, which can decrease site speed. Stick with easy-to-read fonts such as Arial, Helvetica, and Verdana.

Optimize Images and CSS

The speed of your website is very important, especially on mobile, so make sure to compress any elements that take up a lot of space and slow down the loading time. This includes your CSS and high-resolution images. When you compress these elements, it helps to ensure that they will load faster and your site will too, without the quality of your content being effected in a negative way.

Do Mobile Testing Regularly

By continually testing your site for mobile efficiency, you ensure that your site continues to work well for both desktop and mobile users. Set dates in your calendar for when you will look at and test the site on your mobile device, phone, and tablet. Browse the site on these devices to see if everything is easy to use and access. You can also have people that you work with do this for you or hire testers to get a new and fresh perspective.

With users turning to their mobile devices first, it’s crucial you have a mobile-friendly website to greet them. Otherwise, your competitors will take the lead when it comes to online traffic. If you want to stay competitive while giving your users the best online experience, consider making your site mobile-friendly a priority.

Need help making sure your website is mobile friendly? Contact us today!