Optimizing your site for mobile devices is crucial for any successful business in the digital age. Making your site welcoming for mobile viewers requires intentional changes away from desktop site best practices. Your mobile users want a fast experience that helps them accomplish their goals quickly and on their terms. Here’s how you can do just that.
What does it mean to be mobile-friendly?
A mobile friendly site displays just as well on a small phone as it would on a desktop computer. It has to be functional for people using fingers and small screens instead of a mouse and a large display.
Why is it important?
The world is changing and people are doing less and less on their desktops. In recent years, mobile devices finally overtook desktop and laptop computers as the preferred way to access the internet.
Every year, more people are switching off their computers and depending more heavily on their mobile devices. Google determined that more people now access its site on mobile devices than on computers, and it gives preference in site rankings to mobile-friendly sites.
How do I know if my site is mobile-friendly?
Google has done more than just demand that sites be mobile friendly: they have also taken steps to make this easier for site administrators. They did this by administering their own AMP network of servers. Google AMP is a special version of HTML that removes unnecessary code to make sites load faster.
Google keeps a duplicate copy of sites on its server and uses its own server power to help sites load to mobile devices more quickly than they otherwise could. Using an AMP validator tool is the best way to find out if your site is optimized the right way.
What makes a site mobile-friendly?
There are several features that make a site particularly mobile friendly. However, for some sites, it is better to have separate mobile and desktop sites. To be mobile-friendly, a site needs to be responsive. The site should be able to detect what type of device a user is accessing the site with and then respond with the appropriately sized content.
Because the site itself adapts, there is no need to worry about duplicate content or canonical tags. This is what makes it easier, in most cases, to build a responsive site rather than host two separate sites.
How do I make my site mobile-friendly?
Check your site’s current status: Use an AMP validator tool to see how your site currently stands. You should also consider using a domain authority checker to get an idea of how your site is ranking.
Switch to a mobile-friendly theme: If you are running your site off WordPress or using ecommerce, the simplest way to go mobile friendly could be to change themes. WordPress also has many mobile-friendly themes that it’s easy to switch to. If your store runs through Amazon or Shopify, you can be sure your pages are already optimized.
Get a plugin: Some popular management systems offer plugins that can turn your site mobile-friendly quickly. If you use WordPress, Google Sites, SilverStripe or one of the other most popular CSM solutions, helpful plugins are readily available.
Hire help: If you aren’t sure about what to do, or if you have a highly complex website, then the safest move is probably to hire SEO professionals to help you get where you need to be. While you could take time out to learn what to do for yourself, that would be time stolen from what you’re really good at: your business.
