Can you tell whether your website or your blog is responsive? We have plenty to discuss if you’re not familiar with the term or even don’t understand it.
In 2018, 52.2% of all online traffic was via mobile devices. It’s true: More than half of data traffic on the internet is done via mobile devices and tablets.
This means that people spend more time online on their mobile devices than on computers.
You must have already realized the difficulty of not knowing whether your website is mobile-friendly, right?
You may miss out on the majority of your users if your website is not mobile-friendly. Don’t you think that sounds serious?
Continue reading to learn:
What does a mobile-friendly site mean?
Does a responsive site mean it is mobile-friendly as well?
What are the mobile-friendly criteria?
Why is it important to be mobile-friendly?
How can you make your website mobile-friendly?
What is a mobile-friendly website?
Have you ever considered that a laptop and a tablet (or smartphone) are two essentially separate devices?
The screen of a desktop computer is bigger than the screen of a mobile device.
The ratio is also different. Usually, the screen of a monitor is horizontal, while that of a smartphone tends to be more vertical.
The differences are not limited to screen size. On a computer, the user can use a large keyboard to enter information, and a mouse is used to click and control. Mobile devices have a touch screen and a very small keyboard.
The type of internet connection is another way to distinguish the two devices.
Wi-Fi is the only connection available on computers. The mobile device can also be connected via 3G or even 4G.
All these issues create different scenarios for users. A person using a cell phone cannot view pages that have many images because they are using a mobile internet connection. This would use a lot more data and take longer to load.
It must be programmed to take into account these differences. Mobile-friendly is a page that has been optimized to work on mobile devices.
Does a responsive site mean it is mobile-friendly as well?
You probably know how important it is to optimize your website for mobile users.
You may be thinking, “but my site is already responsive.”
The problem is that being mobile-friendly doesn’t mean that you have a website. Technically, the two are distinct.
A responsive layout has code that is assembled to allow the website to adapt to different screen sizes. For example, a smartphone has a screen that is much more vertical than a computer monitor.
You can see it in action right now. It’s already in action.
Try a small experiment: turn your browser from full-screen to window mode. Use the mouse to adjust the size of the window.
Watch how our blog adjusts to any screen size. The text and other elements will adjust automatically as you shrink or expand the window (such as the logo or search bar).
A mobile-friendly site has a version that is exclusive to mobile devices. We see a special layout when we access the site via a tablet or smartphone.
The codes on the page are designed to optimize it for mobile devices, even if they use the same images or content.
In most cases, many sites even create a subdomain for the mobile version, usually indicated with an “m” in the URL, such as “m.testingwebsite.com.”
What are the criteria to have a mobile-friendly website?
Now, let’s have a look!
Simple to use
A mobile-friendly site must be easily navigable. The website should be structured well to help users find what they need or are looking for.
One practical example would be to turn off pop-ups on the mobile version. Pop-ups, unlike many other elements, are not easily adapted to different screen sizes.
They appear in an unwieldy size and block the entire view of the user.
It should be used to organize your website’s content into menus that are easily accessible.
The ideal would be for the user to be able to access the exact content that they are looking for with only a few taps.
Fast loading
The letters were too small to be able to read. The zoom command did not work to enlarge the text.
This is because the website hasn’t been optimized for these commands.
Your ranking can be affected.
Google updated its algorithm in 2015 to highlight mobile-friendly sites when searching on mobile devices.
It is easy to see why: as the number of people using cell phones and tablet devices increases, they begin searching for information online.
User Experience is poor if the websites that they find are not mobile-optimized. This isn’t good for Google.
The search engine began to give greater prominence to websites optimized for these devices. You’re losing out on mobile search ranking if your page doesn’t look like this yet.
Improved user experience
We’ve already said that the user experience is greatly affected if your site is not optimized for mobile.
Poor navigation and heavy images that consume the data package will make visitors not want to return to the website.
Higher conversion rates
Did you know over 84 % of the population make online purchases using their smartphone? It’s true: 8/10 people shop on their mobile devices.
If your website is optimized to reach this audience, your conversion rate will increase.
How many sales did you lose because your users couldn’t access the button to purchase or browse through your store?