A Guide On How To Make Mobile Friendly Websites
People all over the world use the Internet extensively, and it comes as no surprise that the widespread use of mobile devices has made the Internet the go-to medium for information, communication, and various other activities. More than 90% of devices that are a part of the internet are mobile devices, which is why most brands are prioritizing mobile app development more. Every day, the number of mobile devices increases, driven by their versatility and raw power that can easily handle most tasks without showing signs of strain.
This is one of the main determining factors that businesses and companies consider when designing an application from the ground up, which is why prioritizing mobile applications is so important these days. The number of mobile devices that are used by power users is also increasing, and this is all the more for companies to focus on mobile applications.
Even Google is pushing developers to prioritize mobile developers, and developers can check their mobile website compatibility on this free mobile-friendly tester that is entirely backed by Google.
Why To Prioritize Mobile Website Development More?
The number of mobile users is exponentially larger than the number of people who prefer non-mobile devices, and the disparity between the people who lean towards either side of the demographic is mind-blowing.
The number of ever-increasing mobile users means that developers and businesses have to focus on refining their mobile applications and websites more so than on desktops and non-mobile devices. This means developers have to focus on mobile-based user experience as well, which is more often than not an integral part of mobile development. After all, you don’t want your business to lose your clients to another business just because of poor visibility.
In 2015, right when the mobile market started to put some work into the development and expansion of powerful mobile devices, Google began giving more preference to mobile-optimized websites on mobile browsers. This is extremely important as businesses that have an online presence rely entirely on word of mouth and user experience.
How To Achieve Mobile-Friendly Websites
On the business side and to a greater extent on the technical side, creating a mobile-optimized website involves a learning curve. This is because while non-mobile devices generally have larger screens, mobile devices have smaller screens, and developers often break a sweat while encompassing all the webpage data into a smaller screen size. Creating mobile-friendly software takes time, and there is no shorter way around it. You just have to accept the gripes and issues that come with the responsibility of mobile development. You will achieve a very fruitful return on investment if you put in a good amount of effort.
Most mobile users, often engaged in trends, can also revamp your brand identity by using the means of designing a mobile-friendly interface. The understanding of the market bestowed upon developers through the necessity of building a mobile website is more beneficial than you think, as it often gives the company an idea of where they stand and how to proceed with building and spreading the brand identity.
Here is a list of some ways you can design a mobile-friendly website-
Responsiveness
Responsiveness is one of the most significant factors when it comes to the development of mobile websites. A developer and a business should pay undivided attention to making the website responsive, whether they’re revamping an established platform or designing a mobile website from scratch. Over 70% of web designers think that having a non-responsive website is one of the top reasons the business loses visitors. Several features, including interactable elements, page breaks, responsive images, backlinks, etc., are integrated to create a responsive website.
Optimize For Speed
The speed of a website also plays a role in determining how well it interacts with the user. Over 50% of mobile users leave a website if it takes too long to load. Inexperienced developers often have a hard time optimizing a website for speed. Google as a search engine also prioritizes speedier websites and ranks those websites higher than the ones that are slower to load. A speedy website also means that a user is less likely to bounce.
Compress Images
Compression of images is one of the most prevalent problems that developers face. The line between compression and loss of quality is often thin and blurry, and developers have a hard time going through the trial and error of elements like this. Compressed images are not only faster to load but also faster to download. The rate of compression also determines how fast a website loads and less time to load means a substantially higher SEO score.
Use Html5 Instead Of Flash
Mobile websites can be seamlessly designed using HTML5, whereas Flash is not suitable for use on iOS and Android devices. When designing a website with HTML5, performance is optimized and a wider range of elements and factors are supported for controllable aspects such as image compression, load times, responsiveness, element interaction, page breaks, and more.
Search engines prefer HTML5 over Flash, which in turn improves visibility and traffic.
Pop Up Adverts
Pop-up adverts are very annoying for mobile users as they take up a large amount of screen real estate. The upside of this is that it can increase traffic generation if done correctly, which only experienced agencies like Appfoster can do.
Pop-up adverts play a big role in generating traffic for a website, but it is extremely crucial to understand when and where to integrate pop-ups so that the user experience is unhindered.
Button Size And Placement
This one is a no-brainer, button sizes and placement are essential. Interactive UI components like buttons help users navigate through a website, and it is essential for a website to place buttons in a manner that doesn’t obstruct the website contents, but also attracts just enough attention to spark curiosity in the user.
Large Fonts
Large fonts should grab the user’s attention. Mobile websites are more reliant on typography than desktop websites due to their limited screen space for the same amount of content.
Hyperlinks
Hyperlinking is another crucial aspect of developing a reliable mobile website. We use hyperlinks to navigate from one webpage to another, and they can be extremely important for generating traffic and business. Hyperlinks also play a big role in increasing a website’s visibility and SEO score.
Testing
Testing is also one of the most important parts of creating a mobile website. There are thousands of agencies and developers who don’t pay much attention to the testing phase of mobile websites, and this leads to less return on investment and more costs incurred for debugging. Since there are so many different types of mobile devices, texting is complex and needs to be monitored every step of the way. Lighthouse by Google is one such texting software for insightful results.
Conclusion
One of the most demanded service industry right now is web development, but it is still lacking a strong group of players who set the example for best practices.
Developers and agencies often take various important factors like hyperlinks and typography lightly when they get to them. We, at Appfoster strive for excellence in every project, putting a client’s interests first and leaving no stone unturned. Contact us today for our mobile and web development services across a multitude of booming industries.
