Web
Mobile friendly website → This is why it’s important
May
Why it is important to make your website mobile friendly
There is a lot to keep in mind for you to be able to create a modern and functional website 2021 that converts. One thing that is important to keep in mind from the beginning is to make sure that your website is mobile-friendly.
Whether it is a blog, webshop, comparison site or something else, it is more important now than ever to adapt your website for mobile. Below we go through why this is important and give you a complete guide on how to correctly make your website mobile friendly.
What is a mobile friendly website?
A mobile friendly website means that the website has been optimized to work well and look good for visitors who surf via a mobile device. They use the mobile phone’s browser instead of a computer browser. This also applies to visitors who surf via tablet.
Why is it important to have a mobile-friendly website?
A mobile-friendly website drives more traffic to your website. Already in 2016, the proportion of mobile users exceeded the proportion of computer users on the Internet. In 2019, Google estimated that 61% of their searches take place via mobile phones, and today 78% of all Internet users surf via mobile.
With this, it is clear that if you do not have a mobile-friendly website today, you are unfortunately already behind many of your competitors. Regardless of what type of website you run, you do not want to miss out on free traffic just because visitors surf via mobile.
People have less patience than ever before
Today, internet users have a lower tolerance than ever for slow and obscure websites. As today’s Internet users are used to being constantly exposed to new information and impressions, there is no patience left to wait for slow pages to load or to dig for information that is not presented directly in front of them.
As stated above, the majority of internet users today are mobile users, so if your website does not load as fast on the mobile as on the computer, or is not optimized so that texts, images, videos, categories are displayed as intended so that it is easy to understand, the visitors will lose patience and leave your website.
Whether you paid for the traffic through marketing or that the visitor accidentally ended up on your particular website, you do not want to miss them due to bugs that can be easily fixed.
If you compare computer users with mobile users, mobile users have even less patience. This is because they have a smaller screen to work with which requires more concentration, they have no mouse pointer to navigate with in the same way as on the computer, and are often out on the go somewhere or doing other things simultaneously as they surf the mobile.
So there are many external factors that can disrupt your visitor’s concentration, and therefore you should make sure that as few factors as possible on your website can disrupt them even more.
Your website ranks higher on Google
A mobile-friendly website ranks higher in Google searches. Google is aware of today’s large proportion of mobile internet users, they also have studies that show that 94% of local searches on Google are via mobile phones.
As a result, it is the mobile version of your website that they use when deciding how to rank your website in their search results. If you want to give your website the chance to appear high on Google, you need to make it mobile friendly.
A rule of thumb you can take with you is that a good mobile-friendly website leads to a higher ranking on Google with more traffic to your website as a result.
Your website looks more trustworthy
Fact is that a mobile-friendly website increases trust in your website and what is presented there. This is because it gives an impression of modernity and that you know what you are doing.
Complete guide to a mobile friendly website
When you are thinking about where to start to get a mobile friendly website, you are probably asking yourself questions such as “who can make my website mobile-friendly?” Or “What do I need to change on my website for it to be mobile-friendly?”.
Below we answer these questions with a complete guide on how to make your website mobile friendly in the best way, 2022.
How do I get a mobile-friendly website?
There are two options for how to get a mobile-friendly website. One way is to create a standalone mobile version of the website that is on its own subdomain. The second way is to create a responsive website, which adapts automatically and always shows the right version for the visitor.
It does not matter if the visitor surfs via mobile phone or computer, because the website always shows the website version to visitors.
If you choose to go for the first option and create a subdomain for your already existing website, it simply means that your mobile-friendly version of the website is built as a completely new website, completely adapted for mobile users.
This version of your website is completely independent and therefore does not use the same code as your computer website. The mobile version of the website gets its own domain, where the web address often looks like the following: m.mobilewebsite.com
The second option is to create a responsive website. A responsive website means that the website automatically adapts to the visitor of the website. If the visitor surfs via mobile phone or tablet, the mobile version of your website is shown to them, if they surf via the computer, the computer version of the website is shown to them.
This is done completely automatically, the website adapts to the code used when your visitors land on the website, a so-called responsive website.
A responsive website is the much more popular option among websites out there. If you have limited knowledge and time regarding code and programming and need to hire a developer to customize your website, this is recommended because one website is cheaper than two. Time is equal to money from your website budget, which we address in the article new website.
Who can make my website mobile friendly?
There is a lot of help to get when you need to customize your website for mobile. You can either hire a web developer or web designer where they do this for you, or if you have prior knowledge of code, you can do this yourself in WordPress.
If you are going to hire a web developer or web designer to build your website for you, you can easily request a responsive website right from the start, to get a mobile-friendly version. This is something we always do when we build websites for our clients.
This is because it is important for us to give clients all the conditions possible for a lot of quality traffic.
If you already have an existing website that needs to be adapted for mobile, there are companies that specialize in this. This is something we help with. So if you are thinking about how to optimize your website for mobile users, we are happy to take a look at your website and come back with suggestions for you. In that case, contact us.
If you intend to build your own website, you can customize your website in WordPress. They are the world’s largest and most popular platform for creating websites, full of different themes to choose from that are fully responsive. Just install a theme and get started with your web design.
However, WordPress is best suited for you who have some prior knowledge in web development and web design since you can play around with the code and work with extensions. If you are a beginner and have difficulty building your own website, we are happy to help with that.
10 free tricks to make your website mobile-friendly 2021
If you have good knowledge in web development and web design, you can optimize your website for mobile users by implementing the following functions:
- Keep it simple. You want as simple a web design as possible, remove over-complicated technical solutions regarding the website such as for example navigation. When it comes to the average visitor, there is one basic rule to follow: If they do not understand the website, they will leave it. The mobile version of your website should be seen as a mini version of the computer version, but with specially adapted functions that facilitate browsing via the mobile.
- Prioritize the information that visitors want access to. Design the website so that the information that visitors are looking for is the first thing that is presented when they land on the page. If you do not want to present this on the landing page, at least make sure that this information is easy to find.
- Use simple buttons for navigation to and from the website.
- Change long menus in the style template to scroll or drop menus. This means that the visitor clicks on a button to bring up, for example, all categories of a menu instead of them always being visible on the screen. This to make it easier to fit on the mobile screen and thus easier to use.
- All graphic design must be configured for mobile use. This applies, among other things, dimensions of images, videos, and text.
- Customize your website for the most popular mobile browsers. A major reason why your website looks good or bad for the visitor depends on which browser they use when browsing. So be sure to customize it to, for example, Google Chrome, Safari and Mozilla Firefox.
- Have a fast website. In order for your website to be considered completely mobile-friendly, it must be fast. For every second that the website loads more slowly, 20 – 30% of visitors leave.
- Use easy-to-read fonts. Make sure that the font you use on all texts on the website is easy to read and is 1-2 sizes larger than what you have on the computer version.
- Clear text formatting. It is harder to read long pieces of text on the mobile than the computer, so divide them into shorter pieces and paragraphs. Three to four sentences per paragraph are optimal.
- Have a “sticky” menu, which follows when the visitor scrolls. A “sticky” menu is always displayed on the screen no matter where on the website or how far down the pages the visitor is. This is especially good on the mobile version of the website as the visitor always has access to the menu and can easily navigate further.
How do I know if my website is mobile friendly?
If you ask yourself the question “is my website mobile friendly?” you can easily find out for free with Google’s own tool.
