If you’ve been spending the last two years of your life with your eyes glued to your smartphone, then you probably haven’t noticed that everyone else is doing the same thing. While this new lifestyle isn’t exactly helpful for our social life, it has huge upsides for businesses, giving you a powerful way to directly connect with consumers.
[bctt tweet “If your site is not mobile friendly, you need to hire a developer immediately or find a responsive website template.”]
Last year, for the first time, mobile Internet traffic surpassed desktop traffic. And recent reports show that 60% of total digital media time is spent on smartphones and tablets.
Mobile is the way of the future. We do everything on our smartphones, from ordering food to requesting a car ride to finding a date. Every business should be making mobile a priority, and if your website isn’t even mobile friendly, then you’re very far behind.
The easiest way to see if your website is mobile friendly is to first open your website in a Google Chrome browser on a desktop computer. Then, drag the sides of the window to decrease the size of the window horizontally and vertically. If your site automatically adjusts to the size of the browser, then your site is mobile friendly.
If your site is not mobile friendly, you need to immediately hire a developer or find a new website template that is responsive. You should spend all your effort on making your website mobile friendly, and as soon as possible.
Here are some tips for making your website mobile friendly:
Use responsive design
Responsive design allows website developers to build a website that is optimized for different sizes of devices, like smartphones, tablets, and desktop. This way, whenever a visitor comes to your site, the web page will be able to detect the visitor’s screen size and orientation, and change the layout for the best experience possible.
Don’t forget about font size and button size
In order to provide the best mobile experience and maximize lead generation, focus on font sizes and button sizes. Font sizes should be at least 14px — you don’t want to force users to zoom in and start squinting to read your content.
For buttons, don’t be afraid to go big. The bigger and the brighter your button, the more likely users are to click it. Don’t want to run the risk of someone missing your button or hitting the wrong one by mistake.
Use dropdown menus, checklists, and pre-populated fields
If you ask visitors to fill out a form on your mobile website, cut down on the text entry required. Many of us have trouble typing on tiny keyboards (also known as fat-finger syndrome), so use dropdown menus, checklists, and pre-populated fields whenever possible.
Give users the option to go to the full site
No matter how amazing your mobile website is, there will be some people who want information only included on the full version of your site. Or, some people who prefer the full site experience. So, make sure to include links that allow users to return to the full version of the site.
Always be testing
Once you’ve built your responsive website, never stop testing.Test the website on different smartphones and tablets and test every page and button. Run A/B tests with different font or button sizes, or images and no images. Keep thinking of ways to make the experience even better.
If you’re still not convinced that your website should be mobile friendly, listen to the person who makes all the decisions: Google.
Google recently changed its mobile search algorithm to use responsive design as a factor in search rankings. This means that Google now rewards websites that are mobile friendly and penalizes unresponsive websites on mobile search. And when Google lets us in on a factor for its search rankings, we should definitely listen.
Sound off, have you made your website mobile-friendly? Leave your comment or question in the section below.