Mobile-friendly websites: something we’ve all heard of, but what are they exactly? Many people hear the phrase ‘mobile optimisation’ and think they need a fancy mobile app alongside their desktop website.
You’ll be pleased to know that isn’t the case. Mobile-friendly websites are, in fact, the exact same website as you already may have - just with added elements so they display better on mobile devices.
When we talk about ‘mobile devices’, we’re referring to any device smaller than a laptop, which uses a touch screen. So, that includes mobile phones and tablet computers such as iPads.
Use of smartphones for search
A report from Google stated that 40% of people search the web solely on a smartphone. So if your website isn’t optimised for mobile viewing and a user comes across it in their search, they may have a poor experience and may even turn to a competitor’s website for information instead.
How do users browse your website?
Despite the increasing amount of users now searching for, and viewing websites on their mobile phones, there are a number of factors that play into how many mobile viewers your site has. As a general rule of thumb, B2B businesses will have less mobile viewers than B2C sites; you’re far more likely to browse Amazon on your phone from your sofa, but use a computer at work to find suppliers for your business.
An easy way to see what devices your visitors use is to review your Google Analytics data. Take a look at the monthly report below; this is clearly from a site which has business visitors, as 84.8% of the users at this time visit the site from desktop devices.
Because the large majority of visitors to the above website use desktop devices, it’s important for the website owner to make sure the website experience is high for these users. However, it doesn’t mean they should ignore those using mobile devices as they want a positive experience for everyone when they visit their site.
They need to be inclusive of all users, even if the desktop users are in the majority. For websites that have a high number of members of the public viewing their website, we’d expect figures to be well over 50% for users of mobile devices.This example below shows a total of 84.8% of visitors using mobile devices.
Google search results and SEO
We all know that Google’s search engine algorithm is constantly changing making it difficult for most of us to keep up with how to get our website to rank highly. Mobile usability is more important now than ever, especially with Google’s change in 2016 to crawl mobile sites before desktop sites.
With this change, Google ranks your website based on the mobile version of your site and not the desktop version. So if your website either isn’t optimised for mobile at all or has poor mobile performance, it isn’t going to be ranked very highly.
Designing content for the mobile user
With the limited amount of space available on mobile devices, it’s important to ensure that your website is easy to navigate and your content is readable and comprehensive.
If your analytics report shows your main audience are mobile users, then think of the content you’d like them to see. If the design of your website doesn’t make it easy for users to find what they’re looking for, then it might be time for a change.
What can you do to improve the mobile usability of your site?
- See how well your mobile website is performing with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. If it gets the all clear, great, you don’t need to change a thing about your design (though you may want to still look at your menu structure).
- Have a review of your Google Analytics data, see which devices your audience use the most. If you’re a client of ours and aren’t receiving your monthly report, let us know and we’ll get that set up for you.
- Already know you’re in need of a mobile-friendly website? We’re happy to help. Send us an email or call 0115 914 5839 to speak to one of the team and get your new website underway.