Creating a Mobile-Friendly Website: Dos and Don’ts to Follow

In the digital age, most of us are completely reliant on our mobile devices. According to Pew Research Center, approximately 85% of Americans now own a smartphone. Just a decade ago, that number hovered around a mere 35%. But now, we’ve found we can’t function without this technology in the palm of our hand.

This rapid and widespread adoption of mobile devices has had profound effects on the way we interact with the world. Most notably, we now depend on our smartphones to find the information we need and connect with others online. 

As such, any web developer or SEO company will tell you that having a mobile-friendly site is a must. With roughly half of all web traffic now coming from mobile devices, you can’t afford to ignore the needs of those who use their smartphones to search the web.   

Without a mobile-friendly website, you’ll risk ruining your search engine rankings and driving potential customers away. But how can you ensure your site is truly accessible, responsive, and appealing to mobile users? Follow the dos and don’ts below and you’ll be in great shape.

Do…

• Prioritize UX: User experience, or UX, essentially refers to web design concepts that create the best possible experience for a site visitor. It ensures the website is usable and accessible to all by designing the site to maximize high-quality interactions between the web user and the technology. UX goes hand-in-hand with mobile-friendly design, so you’ll need an innate understanding of how visitors want to interact with a site and design your site to help them achieve their goals.
  
• Make Your Site Speedy: No one has the time or the patience for a slow-loading website. If your site fails to load within a few seconds, visitors will abandon it and look elsewhere for solutions. Site speed is a major SEO ranking factor because web users love when sites load quickly and will find little value in ones that are sluggish. Be sure to conduct site speed tests and make any relevant adjustments (like compressing large images, using browser caching, and removing unnecessary scripts) to make your website automatically more mobile-friendly.

• Rethink Font and Link Size: Remember that the way mobile users interact with a site will differ from how desktop and laptop users do. Mobile users will need to tap on links and will be viewing pages on a smaller screen. In most cases, that means you’ll need to adjust the font size for better legibility and ensure all links are easy to tap (rather than click with a mouse). If you fail to account for these differences, you’ll make it much harder for mobile users to view and interact with your site. 

Don’t…

• Create Clutter: It’s understandable that you’d want to include everything about your company, your products and services, and a ton of awesome features on your site. But you need to be careful about doing too much. While you want to provide as much value as possible, that doesn’t mean you should bog down your website’s design. Be mindful about what you include and take care to alleviate clutter. White space is actually your friend here. Focus on creating the clearest, most concise message and remove anything that isn’t absolutely necessary. Walls of text won’t work on mobile and clutter will make it harder for users to find the information they need.

• Complicate Your Navigation: In the same vein, you’ll want to keep things simple – especially when it comes to your site navigation. If you make visitors work too hard to locate what they’re looking for, they aren’t going to waste their time on your website. Instead, they’ll seek out solutions from a competitor. Make sure your mobile navigation (and your desktop navigation, for that matter) is straightforward. Include a search bar on every page, as well!

• Hide Content on Mobile: When some people hear that simplicity is best for mobile users, they think they should streamline their site by hiding certain content when a site is viewed on mobile. This is, unfortunately, a misguided approach. The goal here is to create a consistent experience for all website visitors, regardless of how they’re viewing your site. Whether they view on desktop or mobile, they should be able to access the exact same information. And since Google indexes mobile sites first, hiding content from mobile users could be to your detriment. Always take a mobile-first approach to your design and you’ll ensure both visitors and search engines will be happy.

In 2021, our dependency on mobile devices is at an all-time high. To improve your search rankings and drive traffic to your site, a mobile-friendly design is a must. With these tips, you’ll make it easier for web users to find, interact with, and love your site.