• Paul
• On March 7, 2019

It has never been more critical for your website to be mobile-friendly than it is today. Everyone has a phone. In fact, more people have mobile devices than they have laptops. If your company’s site does not work smoothly or well on mobile, you lose out on the global market, those on their commute, and those who simply prefer to use their mobile.

According to studies, people spend more than twice the amount of time on their mobile than they do on a desktop. To make your site responsive and easy to use for these billions of mobile users, you will want to start with these five steps:

1. Choose a Responsive Design

You have two choices for web design. One, to hire a web design agency to help you create a custom and beautifully responsive design that is unique to your company. Two, to choose a responsive ready-built theme that you can install and start customizing on your own. If you have absolutely no website design experience and want to ensure you have a great design, the first option is your best bet. If you are on a very limited budget, your site is a hobby, or you have web design experience, the second option can be ideal, though you do run the risk of having similar looking sites to your competitors.

This responsive design is the first and most crucial component of a mobile-friendly design. Choose well and tweak it until it looks great on both desktop and mobile.

2. Make Information Easy to Find

You have less screen space on a mobile, so it is important you make information easier to find. This might include having a different menu listing on mobiles than you do on your website. Instead of having the full drop-down list, simplify it. Fewer options will make it easier for users to find what they need. Some examples of what you should have on a mobile-menu include:

• About
• Contact
• Blog
• Products
• FAQ

You can then allow users to filter down results from each category (especially on products). The drop-down text is also useful. Take the FAQ section for example. Put each question in a list. If users want an answer to that question, they should be able to tap that question and for the answer to drop down underneath. This will make the screen easier to understand and sort through.

3. Ensure Buttons are Large Enough

Small buttons are useless on mobile sites. You need your users to be able to press the right spot with their thumbs – and remember, some people have very large thumbs! Make the buttons big and attractive, and when you can, make the whole image clickable. If someone is shopping on your site, for example, they should be able to click on the picture to take them to a product page.

4. Ensure All Mobile Formats Work

Have someone test your mobile site on different phones. You want it to work on all the different mobile browsers and on the different operating systems (Android and iOS in particular). Though the responsive design should work across all platforms, there might be some glitches that will need to be dealt with before you launch.

5. Skip Outdating Design Techniques (Flash)

Skip all the outdated design tactics like Flash and now blacklisted SEO tactics. These are not great for mobile performance or Google’s search ranking. It is also important to note that even if you avoid these tactics now, the design choices you do make could become outdated in the future. To keep your site mobile-friendly and optimized for both users and search engines you need to go through and update it regularly.

For those who are just starting out, you have an excellent opportunity to make your website ideal for mobile use. Simply start a project with Parxavenue today and benefit from a responsive design that looks and works great on desktops, tablets, and mobiles. When you choose a web design company, you also benefit from on-site SEO being implemented right from the start.
Don’t miss out on the 4.68 billion people expected to own a phone (or several) in 2019. Instead, optimize your site for mobile users now and reach a greater audience than ever before.