Table of Contents
What elements are most important to get right on mobile?
You can consider several factors when optimizing a website for mobile:
- Navigation: Above all, make your menu clear and easy to use with fingers. Prioritize essential options and consider a streamlined ‘hamburger’ style menu.
- Buttons and Links: Ensure these are large enough to comfortably tap with a fingertip and spaced far enough apart to avoid accidental clicks.
- Text and Content: Font sizes should be readable without zooming in. On-page content becomes scannable when broken up into sections, keeping blocks concise.
- Images: Images should scale beautifully to the screen size and be optimized for fast loading times, which often means limiting file sizes (don’t compress them too much, though, as they’ll look worse if you do).
How does page speed affect mobile users?
Page speed affects mobile users in several ways, including each of the following:
- Impatience and Bounces: Mobile users are often on slower connections and less patient, meaning that faster page speeds will help them stay on your site for longer and slower ones will repel them.
- Improved Engagement and SEO: Fast loading times equal lower bounce rates and (often) higher search engine rankings, whereas a bad user experience gives Google little choice but to reduce your visibility.
Making the most of mobile responsiveness
Additional tips:
- Start with small screens and choose responsive themes. Test site speed when implementing themes, and if downloading from a third party, read user reviews.
- Use tools like Google Resizer to understand how your website looks on mobile devices.
- Split-test layouts, content, formats, and menus in your website builder on smartphones and tablets. Ask users for regular feedback on their user experience.
Do I need to make my website mobile-responsive?
Yes, if you care about attracting visitors, keeping them engaged, and having your site perform well in SERPs; only focusing on the desktop can limit your chances of customer satisfaction. Analyzing your website traffic can confirm how many people visit from mobile devices, giving you concrete data to support this decision.
Conclusion
Ignoring mobile responsiveness is a recipe for lost traffic and frustrated users in our mobile-centric world, whereas mobile optimization helps increase search rankings and user satisfaction. Benefit from happier visitors and better all-around results with the key mobile experience elements, but your business will suffer if you don’t consider these in your strategy.
