By Tammy Cunningham
In the digital age, mobile devices are the single-most important device to target your marketing to. What was once seen as optional has become an absolute necessity, and that is optimizing your website for mobile users. According to Research.com, recent statistics found that mobile devices account for approximately 50.48% of web traffic while desktop devices account for 46.51%. This goes to show that mobile devices are already more important for web browsing than computers, and the gap is only widening.
Create a Friendly Design
It is extremely important to design a website that fits and runs smoothly on any device and is consistent across devices. Common issues websites suffer from when opened on a mobile device are the format being uneasy, links hiding, text and visuals being too small, general unresponsiveness, and more. Using flexible grids and universal layouts allows for a design that is good for any device.
Fast Load Speed
Your website’s loading speed is imperative for a good mobile experience. Phones have very fast loading speeds nowadays, so if your website is moving slowly, users will get frustrated and can easily close the tab and go elsewhere. Some tips to hasten loading speed are reducing image file sizes, removing unnecessary coding, and using frequently accessed files.
Appropriate Font Use
Mobile devices have a smaller screen than computers by a wide margin, so implementing fonts and font sizes that are legible to both is needed. From personal experience, I can say that if the font is too small to read, it is likely to frustrate me and make me not want to visit the website again. Use colors that contrast well with each other for the font color and background as well, you wouldn’t want a visitor to not be able to read because you used white on a yellow background!
Make Navigation Simple
Taking a deeper dive into a component of creating a friendly design, it is vital to have seamless navigation on your website. A great way to achieve this is by utilizing a “three lines” menu, which is a button that looks like three stack lines and, when clicked on opens a drop-down menu that goes to other pages within your website. Make sure that essential links are easy to access and not hidden.
Test Website on Various Devices
This tip applies to the end stages of your website, the website has already been completed or updated, but you must test it on multiple devices that vary in size. It is advisable to run these tests on a cell phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop monitor as these are the most common devices that websites are viewed on. Troubleshooting before a website is released is a simple step that can save a headache later if an undetected problem arises.
How We Can Help
Optimizing your website for mobile devices can help drive website clicks, improve brand recognition, and increase your search engine rankings. It can be difficult to focus on making your website mobile-friendly, while also focusing on other work. If you need professional help, we are here to help, you can visit the TLC Marketing Consultants website today to contact us!