How To Make Your Website Mobile Friendly

Websites have become prominent tools for content management as well as information distribution. Studies have consistently shown that huge chunks of the global population are subscribed to online news sources for informative, educative, and entertaining content. Of these, more than 95% use mobile phones to access various websites. Search engines have indeed modified their algorithms to prioritize mobile-friendly sites. In this sense, websites that are designed and optimized for mobile devices rank higher and have a boosted SEO.

It is, therefore, important to optimize your website for mobile devices to stay afloat in the fast-changing online environment.

But how is it done? How do you ensure that your website is mobile friendly?

Here Are Ways to Make Your Website Mobile Friendly

a) Avoid common mobile optimization mistakes: To make mobile SEO effective avoid the below mistakes, to ensure that your website meets Google mobile friendly criteria.

• Make Sure JavaScript is enabled – Most responsive, mobile-friendly websites are based on JavaScript. Blocking it will make your site incompatible. JavaScript is the universally accepted model of coding and should be enabled for your website to run effectively on mobile devices.
• Avoid placing unplayable content – This can easily slow down a page’s load time and there are a lot of browsers and devices where it just doesn’t work at all. Neither Android nor iOS devices support flash, so the experience of a flash animation will leave your mobile users out of the picture. Narrow down to the technology that works best for your website without it.
• Prioritize on speed – No matter what changes you implement on your mobile website, you need to keep its speed in mind. Simplify your design to reduce the page loading time to be as low as possible.
• Optimize Image Size – Mobile devices have a much smaller bandwidth compared to desktop. It is, therefore, important to use small-sized images which can be reduced by resizing the images, caching, or by compressing the size. These can be viewed clearly on any device and can also be downloaded easily. Reducing the image size reduces load times on mobile devices and improves the user experience

b) Choose your mobile friendly solution:

• Use a Responsive Theme on CMS – Mobile-friendly themes make it easier for your website to load quickly on a wide array of devices this makes sure the same website is viewed on all devices, but the page becomes adaptive to each device. Always prioritize on the user experience. Once people find it easier to access your content, avenues for natural traffic are subconsciously created.
• Use a Standard Font that is right for your website – Using standard fonts will help you deliver your message more effectively. The choice of your fonts has to be what is universally accepted. Some fonts won’t display on devices with low resolution. A user may be prompted to download new fonts before navigating your website. This will be a bother to most of them and they may have to pass over your site.
• The size matters – Keep this in mind when laying out the different sizes of elements on your mobile site.
• Buttons need to be large enough to avoid accidental clicking of the wrong one. Also keep in mind the placement of clickable items on the screen
• Reduce the amount of text on the screen of your mobile website. Obviously, you’ll need to use some words to communicate with your visitors, but keep sentences and paragraphs as short as possible.

Ponder on this:

• Always make sure you narrow down to mobile design principles that can help maximize traffic and conversions on your mobile website.
• Remember that mobile devices are evolving in how they look and work and today’s mobile friendly website will look different tomorrow. Keep your mobile user in mind as you test and tweak your website.

At HOSTAFRICA, we offer professional Webhosting services that can enable you implement use of a CMS or custom made application with PHP or HTML to work for you. Depending with whether you have a small business or even a corporate it’s possible to embark on making your website mobile friendly.