Do you know how many people have mobile phones in this world? It’s around 4.88 billion, which is around 63.60% of the total population on earth as of January 2021. So you should think about making your website mobile-friendly if it’s not.
There are around 3.8 billion Smartphone users which are 48.53% of the total population worldwide as per stats shown by BankMyCell. These stats should be able to tell you why you should make your website mobile-friendly? If not then let’s see more reasons for the same.
Why Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly?
- As the majority of users use mobile devices so your website should be easily accessible and readable on mobiles.
- To provide a good user experience for users from any device like Smartphones, Multimedia phones, Tablets, or Desktops.
3 Ways to Make A Mobile Website
- Responsive Design: This design needs the same HTML code on the same URL for users from all devices like desktop, mobile, or tablets.
- Dynamic Serving: This design uses the same URL but generates a different version of HTML for different device types.
- Separate URLs: In this design, you need different HTML code on each device on separate URLs.
Google recommends Responsive design as it’s easy to implement with the same URL and HTML code on all devices. This design shows the same page differently based on the screen size of the device.
Best Practices for Mobile-Friendly Website
1. Use Responsive Web Design
As you already know 3 mobile configurations are available for making a mobile website. You can choose any of these 3 configurations but responsive web design is the one that uses the same URL for all the devices i.e. website can be accessed on both desktop and mobile devices with the same URL and HTML code.
A responsive design automatically adjusts website pages as per the size of the device screen. So it makes this design flexible and easy to implement as with the same URL you can access your website on different devices perfectly. The same content will be visible to both desktop and mobile users. Above all this Google also recommends using responsive web design over the other 2 configurations.
2. Regular Mobile-Friendly Test
To keep your website mobile-friendly you should regularly do a Mobile-Friendly Test. Doing this test helps you to know how easily a visitor can use your page on mobile devices. This ensures your website keeps providing a good user experience on all mobile devices.
3. Avoid Text Blocking Ads or Popups
Always remember to avoid any Ads or Popups which can block your webpage’s content as it gives a bad user experience especially on small screens like mobile devices. Keeping text blocking Ads away from your website will keep users on your website for a longer time.
4. Keep Page Speed Faster
If you want to give a good user experience to your users then keep a check on your website’s page speed. You should regularly do a Page Speed Insights test for your website to keep your website’s page load speed faster on both desktop and mobile devices.
Recommended page load speed is up to 3 seconds. So you should look into the opportunities section while doing a page speed test as it shows various suggestions to improve the page load speed of your website.
5. Avoid Using Flash
You should avoid using too much flash on your website as this might not be accessible to your mobile users. Using flash animation may negatively impact both page load speed and the mobile user experience of your website.
6. Keep Readable Font Size
As mobile devices sizes varies but all remain smaller than the desktop. So it’s important to keep the font size of your website above 15 pixel to keep it readable for mobile users.
7. Add Space in Clickable Elements
It’s advisable to keep space within clickable elements like buttons or links within your website. Mobile users should be able to easily click on different elements whichever they want to click without any confusion. The size of these elements should be correctly designed for a better user experience.
Summary
As we all know the number of mobile users will keep growing every coming year. So it’s advisable to make your website mobile-friendly to perform well and provide a better user experience on mobile devices. Make your website responsive, follow the best practices, and regularly do the mobile-friendly test to see and implement new suggestions if any.