Smartphones have now become the technology most closely associated with our daily lives. Because modern life relies on smartphones, it seems strange if someone leaves the house for activities without their smartphone.
This phenomenon is a kind of signal to website owners about the importance of providing a good mobile experience for website visitors.
In 2016, mobile internet usage surpassed desktop or computer internet usage for the first time. Mobile internet use has increased since then and continues to do so.
Therefore, having a mobile-friendly website today is a must. If your website fails to meet these requirements, you will likely lose significant website traffic.
Check out the discussion on how to make your website mobile-friendly below.
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How Mobile-Friendly Is Your Website?
Before you make an effort to make your website mobile-friendly, you first need to know how your website is currently performing.
To find out, Google offers a feature to test the level of mobile-friendliness of a website for free. You only need to enter the URL of your website into the search field for the feature. Google will then assess and display results stating whether your page is mobile-friendly or not.
As additional information, Google will also show examples of how your website will appear on mobile devices and include some recommendations that can be applied to make your website more mobile-friendly.
How to Make a Mobile-Friendly Website
If you have tested the mobile-friendliness level of your website and it turns out that the results are still not optimal, then you can apply some of the tips below to make your website more mobile-friendly.
1. Make your website responsive
Making your website responsive is one of the best ways to make your website work well on multiple platforms (desktop and mobile).
This is possible because a responsive website will display the same content and information on any device but with a customized optimal display.
The web page's appearance will therefore be adjusted to the screen size of the device used by the user. With a responsive website design, you can make your website more mobile-friendly without limiting the information that visitors can access.
2. Make finding information easier
Usually, people who search the internet via smartphones need specific information in a relatively short time. You can accommodate the behavior of these mobile users by displaying the information most sought after by website visitors on the easy-to-find part of the page.
Another way to do this is to add a FAQ section on your website.
3. Improve your website speed
Research conducted by Google regarding mobile loading speed concluded that the average website takes more than 5 seconds to load. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of website visitors are willing to wait so long to open a website.
Most other website visitors will leave a website if the website takes a long time to load.
There are several things you can do to speed up your website load time, including:
- Using AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
- Compressing images and CSS
- Switching to faster web hosting
4. Make your website design as simple as possible
Website design that is too complicated can confuse visitors who open it via a small-screen smartphone. On the other hand, a simple and minimalist website design will make it easier for visitors to find the information they need on the website.
Therefore, make your website design look simple so that it doesn't bother visitors exploring your website.
5. Pay attention to the size of the button on your page
Clicking a button on a web page with the help of the mouse is not difficult. However, this is not the case with using your finger on a small-screen smartphone.
A button size that is too small will make it difficult for visitors with mobile devices to press the button. Especially when there are several buttons attached to the same page.
The easiest way to anticipate this is to make the button size on your page bigger. In addition, also make sure the location of the button is not close to other buttons.
6. Pay attention to the font size
As with buttons, reading information on the web via a smartphone will be more difficult if the font displayed is small. Always test first to see how your web page will look on a mobile screen.
From there, you can see whether the font size you have selected is large enough or not.
7. Don't use flash
Using flash on your website is one of the SEO mistakes that you need to avoid. Using flash can extend your website load time.
In addition, not all browsers and devices can display flash properly, including Android and iOS.
Conclusion
There are several approaches you can take to make your website more mobile-friendly. But keep in mind that the pattern and technology of using mobile devices will continue to change. So, the website which is currently considered mobile-friendly will not necessarily remain so in the future.
For this reason, you need to continue to make improvements and follow the development of mobile users' behavior at all times.