I could start by bombarding you with statistics on how many people now use smartphones vs. desktops, but you've probably heard them. I could talk about the importance of making your website usable and readable on mobile, but you're doubtless already aware of that.
- Your Websites Are Now Mobile Friendly Hotels
- Your Websites Are Now Mobile Friendly Resorts
- Your Websites Are Now Mobile Friendly Countries
- Your Websites Are Now Mobile Friendly Cell Phones
Considering how important a website can be for any small business it seems only natural to take the extra care to ensure the website is mobile friendly. It's amazing to me how so many websites are still not optimized for a mobile experience. Here are five reasons small businesses must have a mobile optimized website: 1. Mobile Users are Different. To see how your website currently performs on mobile, start with a few of Google's helpful resources: Mobile-Friendly Test and Page Speed Insights.If the results you see confirm your worst nightmare or the screenshot of your mobile website looks wrong, take a deep breath.
Get Mobile Friendly Now. Mobile phone adoption by people around the world is at an all-time high, and the rate of customers shopping directly from their phones is increasing every year — it's clear if your store is not optimized for mobile devices, you will put yourself at a serious disadvantage. 2020 wasn't just the year of work from home, it was also the year that businesses went virtual. Hundreds of thousands of brick-and-mortar business owners realized that they had to adapt to an. You can achieve a consistent website experience across all devices with a simplified, mobile-friendly site. These sites may not have crazy features or functionality, but they just work. Think about going mobile-friendly if: You don't have a huge mobile audience looking at your site on mobile - less than 35 percent.
At this point, there's really only one thing left to say.
Why isn't your site already mobile-friendly?
If you're on WordPress, translating your site to the smaller screen is actually quite simple. I can even walk you through it.
First, either make sure you're using a theme that's compatible with mobile devices or a mobile optimization plugin. Second, write and design your content considering how users browse on mobile. That's pretty much all there is to it.
Finding A Mobile-Optimized WordPress Theme
By far, Uncode is one of the best WordPress themes on the market. Not only is it flexible, dynamic, and attractive, it's designed to have as small a resource footprint as possible.
It's the perfect choice for a portfolio website or blog. Plus, its high degree of customizability means that no two sites running it will look exactly the same.
If you're running a storefront through WordPress, you'll want to go with Hudson. It's reasonably priced, with a decent update schedule and a ton of advanced features that allow you to create a picture-perfect digital storefront.
Of course, these are just recommendations. You can check out theme directories like Tesla Themes, Theme Forest or Template Monster to see if you find one you like better than the above.
Installing A Mobile Optimization Plugin
If you'd rather not spend time trawling theme libraries or you have a theme of your own you want to use, you can instead choose to install an optimization tool like WPTouch, Touchy, Superfly or AMP. Depending on how heavily your site relies on elements like menus and media, you may want to do both.
Generally speaking, all four of the above plugins have the same feature-set with only minor differences between them. Which one you choose is really up to personal preference. I'd recommend trying out each one to see which is the best fit for your needs.
Tweaking Your Content
Last but certainly not least, let's talk about content.
Most people who are on their smartphones aren't going to want to spend twenty minutes or more scrolling through a long-form article. They wouldn't want to watch an hour-long webinar, either.
When someone arrives at your site via their smartphone, they're probably not interested in staying for any longer than is strictly necessary.
What that means is they want content that's streamlined, concise, and easy to digest. If you must include longer-form content, make sure it's broken up into easily-digestible chunks through headlines or subheads.
And for the love of all that's holy, never paginate your articles. A user on mobile probably isn't going to wait for a new page to load just so they can keep reading a piece you've published.
Take A Mobile First Approach
Smartphones are the future. Of that, there can be no doubt. If you haven't already optimized your WordPress site to be both usable and readable on them, you need to do so now.
Otherwise, you're going to be left in the past.
See Also: The Hidden Costs of Developing A Mobile App You Should Be Aware of
Author: Brad Litwin
Brad Litwin is the Marketing Manager at A2 Hosting, a high-performance web hosting provider. Brad's experience ranges from PPC management to social media management. For more great content, you can follow A2 Hosting @a2hosting on Twitter.
I get a lot of questions about the differences between mobile-friendly vs mobile-optimization vs responsive design for websites. These questions include:
- What is a mobile-friendly website?
- What is mobile-optimization?
- What is responsive design?
- What are the differences of all of the above?
- Where does mobile first design fit in?
- What is the best design strategy for my website?
My goal is to answer all of these questions, plus a few more along the way. (If you'd like a deeper explanation, or have other questions you'd like answered, just shoot me an email!.)
For clarity's sake, when I say mobile or mobile device, I am referring to devices that are the approximate size and shape of most smartphones (mobile phones).
Ok, let's hop to it!
Mobile-Friendly Websites
Google's search rankings now emphasize and reward mobile-friendly websites. Many people may think that having a mobile-friendly website is good enough, and for Google's robots it is! But this is not necessarily good enough for the visitors coming to your website. In short, mobile-friendly is the bare minimum mobile design strategy you should have for your mobile visitors.
If you aren't sure if your website is mobile-friendly, then check-out Google's webmaster tool. A mobile-friendly website is often just a slimmed down version of the website viewed on a desktop.
For example, as a general rule your content should be written in at least 14 or 16 pt font. It seems big, but when it gets shrunk down anything less will be hard to read. Hard to read ≠ mobile-friendly.
Mobile-friendly websites will work for mobile users, but these websites were designed for the desktop users. A smaller version of your desktop website can be functional but may not be as user friendly as it could be… And this is where mobile-optimization starts to enter the fray.
Mobile-Optimized Websites
All mobile-optimized websites are mobile-friendly, but not all mobile-friendly websites are mobile-optimized. Mobile-optimization targets mobile users; these websites are designed for smaller screens.
A mobile-optimized website will reformat itself for mobile users. It is not just a shrunken down version of the desktop website.
Design features of a mobile-optimized website can include:
- Single column layout
- Easy, simple navigation that is 'thumb friendly'
- Large graphics with white-space borders for those of us with large or clumsy fingers
- Formatted content for maximum readability
- Limited to no need for typing
- Image file sizes are smaller for the mobile version of the website than those used for the desktop version of the website. (This allows for quicker load times.)
- A fewer number of features overall (minimalist, uncluttered design)
Mobile users are much more likely to be searching for a quick answer compared to their desktop search counterparts. (I tend to search for restaurants, movie reviews, and directions on my phone. I am not doing in-depth searches on my phone on technical topics like mobile-optimized design. I save those types of searches for my laptop.)
The goal of a mobile-optimized website is to make the website as frictionless as possible for the mobile user. Mobile users are seeking the quickest, most efficient way to answer their questions. Mobile-optimization aims to do exactly that.
Websites Created with Responsive Design
Responsively designed websites do exactly as phrase suggest. They 'respond' to the screen size of the device being used. In a sense, responsive design picks up where mobile-optimization leaves off.
Responsive design reformats and restructures websites for any device—regardless of screen size. Mobile-optimization only does this for mobile devices. With responsive design, the layout of the website will scale from the smaller screens of mobile, tablets, and small laptops, to the standard desktop screen and even larger widescreen monitors.
Your Websites Are Now Mobile Friendly Hotels
Responsive design offers flexibility and great usability on all devices for users. It's really the only way to guarantee that your website will look good and have optimized usability on any device.
If you are curious, Torspark is a responsively designed website. (Try looking at the homepage, or any other part of our website on different devices. When you do, you'll see a different, scaled version for each device type. Or, just resize your browser and see how everything balances out on the page.)
Mobile-First Design Strategy
Mobile-first is a design strategy in which the mobile version of the website is designed first over the traditional desktop version. This design strategy can also apply to products designed for and marketed to mobile users first, ahead of 'traditional' internet users.
A lot of design issues come from trying to stuff too many features into a single page. When designing with mobile-first in mind, you tend to get a simpler, cleaner design structure. This works well as a base, because it's easier to add relevant features into the desktop view as needed, rather than trying to stuff every bell and whistle into a mobile view.
2014 was the breakout year for mobile usage—the first year mobile use surpassed daily desktop use. (Adults spent on average 2 hours and 51 minutes on mobile devices daily, but only 2 hours and 12 minutes daily on desktops.) Mobile first and responsive design strategies are becoming more in demand as the trend of increased mobile use continues. If you aren't sure about jumping into the deep end of responsive design, a mobile first design strategy can be the first step as part of a larger responsive design strategy.
Your Websites Are Now Mobile Friendly Resorts
What type of design is best for my business and my website?
The not very helpful answer is 'it depends'. Honestly, the answer depends on the answers to the following questions:
- What is the purpose of your website?
- What do you want your website to do for visitors?
- What devices are you expecting your visitors to be accessing your site from?
Websites are meant to take visitors on a digital journey. That journey is supposed to be as smooth and frictionless as possible. The easier you can make navigating your website, the more likely you are to increase conversions.
Also, what is the budget for your website? Mobile-optimized and responsively designed websites are often a little more expensive than mobile-friendly websites. Why? In short, they take longer to develop and build.
If you're on WordPress, translating your site to the smaller screen is actually quite simple. I can even walk you through it.
First, either make sure you're using a theme that's compatible with mobile devices or a mobile optimization plugin. Second, write and design your content considering how users browse on mobile. That's pretty much all there is to it.
Finding A Mobile-Optimized WordPress Theme
By far, Uncode is one of the best WordPress themes on the market. Not only is it flexible, dynamic, and attractive, it's designed to have as small a resource footprint as possible.
It's the perfect choice for a portfolio website or blog. Plus, its high degree of customizability means that no two sites running it will look exactly the same.
If you're running a storefront through WordPress, you'll want to go with Hudson. It's reasonably priced, with a decent update schedule and a ton of advanced features that allow you to create a picture-perfect digital storefront.
Of course, these are just recommendations. You can check out theme directories like Tesla Themes, Theme Forest or Template Monster to see if you find one you like better than the above.
Installing A Mobile Optimization Plugin
If you'd rather not spend time trawling theme libraries or you have a theme of your own you want to use, you can instead choose to install an optimization tool like WPTouch, Touchy, Superfly or AMP. Depending on how heavily your site relies on elements like menus and media, you may want to do both.
Generally speaking, all four of the above plugins have the same feature-set with only minor differences between them. Which one you choose is really up to personal preference. I'd recommend trying out each one to see which is the best fit for your needs.
Tweaking Your Content
Last but certainly not least, let's talk about content.
Most people who are on their smartphones aren't going to want to spend twenty minutes or more scrolling through a long-form article. They wouldn't want to watch an hour-long webinar, either.
When someone arrives at your site via their smartphone, they're probably not interested in staying for any longer than is strictly necessary.
What that means is they want content that's streamlined, concise, and easy to digest. If you must include longer-form content, make sure it's broken up into easily-digestible chunks through headlines or subheads.
And for the love of all that's holy, never paginate your articles. A user on mobile probably isn't going to wait for a new page to load just so they can keep reading a piece you've published.
Take A Mobile First Approach
Smartphones are the future. Of that, there can be no doubt. If you haven't already optimized your WordPress site to be both usable and readable on them, you need to do so now.
Otherwise, you're going to be left in the past.
See Also: The Hidden Costs of Developing A Mobile App You Should Be Aware of
Author: Brad Litwin
Brad Litwin is the Marketing Manager at A2 Hosting, a high-performance web hosting provider. Brad's experience ranges from PPC management to social media management. For more great content, you can follow A2 Hosting @a2hosting on Twitter.
I get a lot of questions about the differences between mobile-friendly vs mobile-optimization vs responsive design for websites. These questions include:
- What is a mobile-friendly website?
- What is mobile-optimization?
- What is responsive design?
- What are the differences of all of the above?
- Where does mobile first design fit in?
- What is the best design strategy for my website?
My goal is to answer all of these questions, plus a few more along the way. (If you'd like a deeper explanation, or have other questions you'd like answered, just shoot me an email!.)
For clarity's sake, when I say mobile or mobile device, I am referring to devices that are the approximate size and shape of most smartphones (mobile phones).
Ok, let's hop to it!
Mobile-Friendly Websites
Google's search rankings now emphasize and reward mobile-friendly websites. Many people may think that having a mobile-friendly website is good enough, and for Google's robots it is! But this is not necessarily good enough for the visitors coming to your website. In short, mobile-friendly is the bare minimum mobile design strategy you should have for your mobile visitors.
If you aren't sure if your website is mobile-friendly, then check-out Google's webmaster tool. A mobile-friendly website is often just a slimmed down version of the website viewed on a desktop.
For example, as a general rule your content should be written in at least 14 or 16 pt font. It seems big, but when it gets shrunk down anything less will be hard to read. Hard to read ≠ mobile-friendly.
Mobile-friendly websites will work for mobile users, but these websites were designed for the desktop users. A smaller version of your desktop website can be functional but may not be as user friendly as it could be… And this is where mobile-optimization starts to enter the fray.
Mobile-Optimized Websites
All mobile-optimized websites are mobile-friendly, but not all mobile-friendly websites are mobile-optimized. Mobile-optimization targets mobile users; these websites are designed for smaller screens.
A mobile-optimized website will reformat itself for mobile users. It is not just a shrunken down version of the desktop website.
Design features of a mobile-optimized website can include:
- Single column layout
- Easy, simple navigation that is 'thumb friendly'
- Large graphics with white-space borders for those of us with large or clumsy fingers
- Formatted content for maximum readability
- Limited to no need for typing
- Image file sizes are smaller for the mobile version of the website than those used for the desktop version of the website. (This allows for quicker load times.)
- A fewer number of features overall (minimalist, uncluttered design)
Mobile users are much more likely to be searching for a quick answer compared to their desktop search counterparts. (I tend to search for restaurants, movie reviews, and directions on my phone. I am not doing in-depth searches on my phone on technical topics like mobile-optimized design. I save those types of searches for my laptop.)
The goal of a mobile-optimized website is to make the website as frictionless as possible for the mobile user. Mobile users are seeking the quickest, most efficient way to answer their questions. Mobile-optimization aims to do exactly that.
Websites Created with Responsive Design
Responsively designed websites do exactly as phrase suggest. They 'respond' to the screen size of the device being used. In a sense, responsive design picks up where mobile-optimization leaves off.
Responsive design reformats and restructures websites for any device—regardless of screen size. Mobile-optimization only does this for mobile devices. With responsive design, the layout of the website will scale from the smaller screens of mobile, tablets, and small laptops, to the standard desktop screen and even larger widescreen monitors.
Your Websites Are Now Mobile Friendly Hotels
Responsive design offers flexibility and great usability on all devices for users. It's really the only way to guarantee that your website will look good and have optimized usability on any device.
If you are curious, Torspark is a responsively designed website. (Try looking at the homepage, or any other part of our website on different devices. When you do, you'll see a different, scaled version for each device type. Or, just resize your browser and see how everything balances out on the page.)
Mobile-First Design Strategy
Mobile-first is a design strategy in which the mobile version of the website is designed first over the traditional desktop version. This design strategy can also apply to products designed for and marketed to mobile users first, ahead of 'traditional' internet users.
A lot of design issues come from trying to stuff too many features into a single page. When designing with mobile-first in mind, you tend to get a simpler, cleaner design structure. This works well as a base, because it's easier to add relevant features into the desktop view as needed, rather than trying to stuff every bell and whistle into a mobile view.
2014 was the breakout year for mobile usage—the first year mobile use surpassed daily desktop use. (Adults spent on average 2 hours and 51 minutes on mobile devices daily, but only 2 hours and 12 minutes daily on desktops.) Mobile first and responsive design strategies are becoming more in demand as the trend of increased mobile use continues. If you aren't sure about jumping into the deep end of responsive design, a mobile first design strategy can be the first step as part of a larger responsive design strategy.
Your Websites Are Now Mobile Friendly Resorts
What type of design is best for my business and my website?
The not very helpful answer is 'it depends'. Honestly, the answer depends on the answers to the following questions:
- What is the purpose of your website?
- What do you want your website to do for visitors?
- What devices are you expecting your visitors to be accessing your site from?
Websites are meant to take visitors on a digital journey. That journey is supposed to be as smooth and frictionless as possible. The easier you can make navigating your website, the more likely you are to increase conversions.
Also, what is the budget for your website? Mobile-optimized and responsively designed websites are often a little more expensive than mobile-friendly websites. Why? In short, they take longer to develop and build.
In the long run, the extra optimization to functionality and usability offered by a responsively designed or mobile-optimized site will provide you with a higher ROI than a site that is just mobile-friendly. Now, whether or not the expense is justified will have to be evaluated on a business-by-business basis.
On a side note, have you tried to use your business's website as if you were a customer? What about as a mobile user? Do you know what your mobile site looks like? If you are drawing a blank, or have a panicky uncertain feeling right now, that's probably not a good indicator.
Consider The Following for Mobile-Friendly vs Mobile-Optimized vs Responsive Design
Is your main customer base cruising your website on a desktop? Then maybe a mobile-friendly website is good enough for you. Google doesn't penalize you in the search rankings, and you don't spend extra money on a mobile-optimized or responsively designed website.
On the other hand…Your Websites Are Now Mobile Friendly Countries
Do you have any kind of e-commerce, blogs, or a customer base that actively uses mobile devices? If this is the case, then you may want to invest in a mobile-optimized or responsively designed website.
Mobile-Optimized and Responsively Designed Websites Can Offer a Creative User Experience
Your Websites Are Now Mobile Friendly Cell Phones
Just because visitors are viewing your website on a smaller screen, doesn't mean your site has to be boring. Remember mobile users have the ability to take pictures and videos, make phone calls, use GPS for finding things near their location, and so much more!
And this is the beauty of stepping beyond just a mobile-friendly website. There are so many new and different user interface options for visitors NOT using a desktop. Some businesses even have completely different website versions for desktop users versus mobile users.
Think about your visitors. What type of experience do you want them to have using your website? Optimize your website for that experience! Given the possibilities with the internet, saying the sky's the limit seems almost diminutive.
