There weren’t any big announcements.
You may not even know it happened.
But by the end of 2016 an event occurred that had and continues to have an effect on your business: for the first time ever, mobile use of the internet outstripped desktop use.
What does that mean for your business? It means that since 2016, over half of your audience is accessing your website on a much smaller mobile screen, and the percentage continues to climb. That’s why learning how to tell if you have a mobile-friendly website is crucial.
What Makes a Website Mobile-Friendly?
A website is mobile friendly when its design makes it easy for a person to view, navigate, and interact with on a mobile device.
The number one feature of a mobile friendly website is responsive design. Responsive design is when you choose or build a theme for your website that makes it fit whatever size screen it is being viewed on. Without responsive design, when someone views your site on a tablet or mobile device what they are really seeing is a miniature version of the way your site appears on a desktop computer. This can make the text so small that it is hard to read, make buttons hard to find and click on, and force the viewer to scroll from right to left as well as up and down to access all of the content.
A mobile friendly website, then, is one that has a responsive design and makes use of larger fonts, bigger buttons, and streamlined contact forms to reduce the amount of typing people have to do on their phones if they want to get in touch with you.
Why Do You Need a Mobile-Friendly Website?
As of November 2023, people using mobile devices contribute to 56.2% of all website traffic. As technology advances, mobile devices become even more common, and access becomes even more widespread, quick, and easy, this number will continue to rise.
The bottom line is that if you want people to visit your site, it needs to be easily accessible via mobile device.
It’s not enough, however, just to get people onto your site. You want them to stay there and engage with you, your products, and services. And they won’t do that if they can’t read the text on their phone, or if the buttons are so close together that they accidentally click on the wrong one, or if they have to scroll back and forth to read a sentence.
A mobile friendly website is essential to getting the traffic you want on your site, and to providing those visitors with an engaging user experience that converts into sales.
How Can You Tell if You Have a Mobile- Friendly Website?
There are a couple of ways you can tell if your website is mobile friendly. One of the easiest is to just pull it up on your own mobile device and try to read and navigate it. Test it out for yourself to see how easy—or frustrating—it is to get around on the site.
Google also has a free tool you can use to assess the mobile friendliness of your site. You can access this tool here. Entering your website’s URL into this tool will give you a thumbs up or a thumbs down from Google on the mobile friendliness of your site, and even give you insight into how fast your site loads.
Wondering what a more mobile-friendly website can do for your business? Contact the marketing experts at RedKnight Marketing today to find out!
