Is my website mobile friendly?

A mobile friendly website is critical for your website success. In many countries mobile usage exceeds traffic from desktop devices.

By not having a mobile-friendly website, you’re setting yourself up for failure. With intense competition on the internet, lacking a mobile-friendly website almost guarantees failure.

In this blog post, we’ll delve into the significance of mobile optimization. We’ll guide you on how to check your website for mobile friendliness and provide tips on how to make your website mobile-friendly.

Let’s dive in!

Table of Contents

Why Mobile Optimization is Important

Every year the number of mobile users increases. Check out the latest stats here: Worldwide Smartphone users

Mobile users user their phones constantly during the day. You don’t need stats to confirm this, just look at people at bus stops, walking down the street or people stopped at traffic lights in cars.

Mobile bounce rates are much higher than on desktop devices (67% on mobile vs 32% on desktop). This means mobile users are less patient and will leave slow loading websites:

• 32% if the loading time is increased by 1 to 3 seconds.
• 90% if it’s increased by 1 to 5 seconds.
• 123% if it’s increased by up to 10 seconds.

Nearly everyone owns a mobile phone. According to Data Reportal, 96.6% of people in the age range of 16-64 own a mobile phone. If you have a mobile-friendly website, all of these people are your potential audience.

Source: Mobile vs Desktop stats 2023

Does mobile usability affect SEO?

Yes. Google uses the mobile version of your website for crawling and indexing.

While it isn’t required to have a mobile version of your website to be indexed by Google it is very strongly recommended (Google’s words).

To read more about mobile-first indexing and Google’s recommendations for a mobile version of your website, check out their documentation: Mobile-first indexing: Best Practises

Local SEO: Mobile devices are often used for local searches, such as finding nearby businesses or getting directions. Having a mobile-friendly website can improve your visibility in local search results and help attract local customers.

How to check your website is mobile friendly

Google provides a free website tool to check how mobile friendly your website is.

It offers a quick and easy test of your website and will diagnose any mobile usability issues that may be present.

Typically, the test will take under a minute to run. Just enter the URL of the web page you want to test, whether it’s the home page or a specific page on your website.

You don’t need a Google Search Console account to use this test.

Tips for Making Your Website Mobile-Friendly

Here are some tips to help you create a mobile friendly website.

Use a mobile friendly theme

First, and foremost, use a mobile friendly theme. I also recommend your choose a fast, lightweight and minimal theme for speed (speed is an important ranking factor).

For WordPress users there are many themes to choose from. This website uses the GeneratePress theme along with the GenerateBlocks plugin to provide some additional Blocks that work with the WordPress editor. It’s a highly recommended theme that is fast, mobile friendly and supports all the latest standards, it comes in a free and premium version.

Compress images

A slow-loading website not only frustrates users but also leads to lost customers and revenue, especially for mobile users. One primary culprit for slow-loading pages is image size. That’s why I highly recommend using an image compression service or plugin.

Imagify is an excellent option for compressing images on any website. Simply upload your images to the website, and it will generate a compressed version for you to download. If you’re using WordPress, there’s even a convenient plugin available. The free version of Imagify offers a generous 2 MB quota, and if you need more, there are paid plans to choose from.

Don’t use popups

They annoy users and can result in visitors leaving your site. Google will also penalize websites that use large popups.

Use banners instead of popups

Mobile friendly forms

If you have forms on your website, such as “Contact Us” or “Join Our Newsletter” forms, it’s essential to ensure they are displayed correctly on mobile devices.

To achieve this, I recommend using a mobile-friendly forms builder. For WordPress websites, WPForms is an excellent choice. It’s a widely recognized plugin for WordPress and offers both free and premium versions.

Touch friendly buttons and links

When using mobile devices, people interact with buttons and links using their fingers. Whether they have small or large fingers, it’s crucial to have buttons and links that are properly spaced and easy to tap.

Moreover, it can be challenging to identify images with associated links on mobile devices, especially without hover effects. To address this, you may want to consider including a text link below the image, making it clear to mobile readers that a link is associated with the image.

Final Thoughts

I hope you found this article informative.

Here is a quick recap:

• Mobile friendliness is important – many users will access your site on their smartphone
• Choose a mobile friendly theme that is fast loading
• Compress images
• Don’t use popups – use banners instead
• Check your website using Google’s free mobile website test tool

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