June 2024
Mobile friendliness is something that the web design industry has been hearing about for over a decade. While IBM’s Simon may have been the first “smartphone,” phones did not have the processing power to handle websites of today’s standards.
For a long time, web browsers on phones were text-based.
But now, more people are using their phones to access the Internet than desktop computers. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, it also impacts your traffic since mobile first Google indexing was announced in 2020 for the entire web.
Google’s mobile first indexing definition states that the search engine predominantly uses the mobile version of your site, using a smartphone agent, to index and rank the site. Since over 70% of websites use mobile-friendly design concepts, it’s important that you follow these design concepts or risk missing vital traffic to your site.
If you don’t follow mobile first website design concepts, it’s time to start because:
Website owners who want to maximize their search traffic and cater to potential clients and customers must focus on the mobile version of their sites. You can easily integrate responsive design concepts into your website to adapt your design to any screen size.
If you’re working on updating your site on your own or want to hire us for custom web design services, it’s important to focus on the elements and features that make a standard site mobile-friendly.
Mobile-friendly sites are a must-have, and there are multiple components that make a site “mobile-friendly,” including:
Mobile friendliness starts with responsive design concepts. When a site is coded or a template is chosen, it’s crucial that it has a mobile first responsive design.
What does this mean?
Your site will be fluid and conform to the user’s screen. This means that the site is coded so that when it’s rendered, it caters to:
CSS and HTML can help you achieve the goal of a responsive website by eliminating fixed widths and heights for elements.
Mobile first and responsive web design must consider the slower speeds of smartphones. Even on 4G and 5G, it’s crucial that the site loads quickly. You can achieve this goal by:
Tools like PageSpeed Insights can help you achieve your goal of fast loading speeds.
Complex navigation impacts the user experience and is something websites of all sizes and types should focus on improving. You can make navigation easier with:
Mobile friendliness does cause elements to be smaller to fit on the screen. You want to avoid forcing text elements to be a certain size, such as 12px, and em is one option in CSS to reach this goal.
But you also need to have a layout that uses whitespace adequately and doesn’t push elements together to block text.
Thorough testing of your website’s design across devices will help you identify text-related issues and correct them.
Mobile first web development must prioritize the optimization of media. Images can slow a page’s load speed, but video and other media can send loading speeds to a grinding halt.
Taking steps to optimize all media will help ensure pages load quickly and the user’s experience is positive.
Mobile first website design addresses all aspects of the site’s design and function, including forms.
Mobile-friendly forms are simple, quick to load and sized just right for smartphone screens.
Form fields are larger, which makes it easier for smartphone users to tap and enter their information. The number of fields is also pared down to the necessities. Mobile users don’t want to spend more time than necessary filling out forms and entering their information.
The quicker they can enter and submit forms, the better.
Responsive forms make it easy to capture the same data from all users regardless of which device they’re using and without compromising on speed and user-friendliness in the process.
Mobile first indexing is not without its challenges. Some of the most common issues that you may face include:
Mobile friendliness can sometimes come at the cost of content discrepancies, particularly if a site has mobile and desktop versions.
Discrepancies such as these can make it difficult for Google’s algorithms to know what your site is about and its comprehensiveness.
It’s crucial to ensure consistency between mobile and desktop versions of the site to avoid misleading the algorithm.
Mobile first ecommerce design must be created with all users and devices in mind. Otherwise, usability and functionality may suffer.
Some pages may not be mobile-friendly. Navigation may be difficult or impossible on these pages, depending on the design and layout of the site.
The same issues can arise on desktop versions.
For this reason, all pages and functions must be tested to ensure that they work properly on both desktop and mobile devices, including:
Usability concerns should not be taken lightly and must be addressed as soon as discovered to avoid delivering a negative user experience.
Speed is always a concern when it comes to mobile first web design and development. Pages must load quickly if you want mobile users to have a positive experience and to stay on your site.
Search engines like Google also favor speedy sites.
Optimization is key if you want to mitigate performance issues. Content delivery networks and image compression are just two of the ways to help overcome speed issues.
Now more than ever, people are using their mobile devices to browse the web, make purchases and find businesses. With mobile first indexing, businesses must ensure that their sites are mobile friendly, speedy and easy to navigate.
The simplest way to ensure mobile friendliness and avoid some of the common pitfalls above is to work with an experienced professional.
At BMG Media, we take a tailored approach to web design, and our team of innovative designers is always ahead of the curve.
Whether you’re building a site from scratch or want to transform your current site, we’re here to help you meet your design goals.
Contact us for a quote today.
