Google caused quite a stir in the online sphere when they announced they will be taking mobile friendliness into consideration as a ranking factor.
Considering that 55% of all time spent on online shopping in June 2013 was on a mobile device, it’s no wonder having a mobile-friendly website is crucial nowadays.
In this article, we will discuss what you can do to make sure your website visitors get the optimal experience when visiting your website on a mobile device.
How to Optimize Your Website to Be Mobile Friendly
Even if you are using a responsive theme, that doesn’t mean your entire website is mobile friendly. In fact, you should pay attention to a number of other elements such as your social sharing buttons, your form fields, your WordPress pop ups, and if you have an online store, you have to make sure the fields display properly even on mobile devices.
Check Your Social Sharing Buttons
Many social sharing buttons give you the ability to display sharing buttons in a variety of places: above the content, below the content and as a floating sidebar. While that’s great when someone views your website on a laptop or a desktop, things drastically change when it comes to mobile devices.
In most cases, your social sharing buttons wind up covering the entirety of your content or become so small that it’s impossible to click on them.
Check your blog posts on your mobile device and if the sharing buttons don’t display nicely, switch to a plugin like Social Warfare which are responsive and perform great on smaller screens.
Optimize Your Email Optin Forms
Email pop-ups are one of the most effective ways to grow your email list, especially if they offer exit-intent technology. Unfortunately, many WordPress pop-ups fail completely on mobile devices: they are either impossible to close or so small your visitors cannot even read what they say.
Find a plugin that will display properly on mobile devices. You want something that is not only going to offer gorgeous exit popups, but that offers the ability to create opt-in forms especially for mobile devices.
Make Sure Your Online Store Displays Properly
If your website includes WooCommerce or any other type of eCommerce solution, it’s necessary for your store to display and function properly on both desktop and mobile.
Be sure to check your product images and ensure they scale nicely on smaller screens and that they don’t appear cut off.
Your shop buttons shouldn’t extend over the allowed screen size and the input form fields should trigger the correct keyboard.
Likewise, the form fields in your shop should be big enough so that your website visitors can still click in them, no matter their finger size.
Be Careful Embedding Youtube Videos or Infographics
If you like to include Youtube videos, infographic or any other type of content that has a set width or height, make sure the width doesn’t go over the content width of your blog post area. The best way to make sure this doesn’t happen is to properly embed external content to make adjustments to your stylesheet, as explained in this Smashing Magazine article.
Speed Up Your Website
Nothing turns readers away like a slow loading website. It’s a surefire way to ruin the experience for your readers, especially for those on mobile devices.
One of the best ways to speed up your website is to use a caching plugin like WP Super Cache which can help you perform a number of small tweaks like minifying your style sheets and JavaScript files. Other helpful tweaks include minimizing the number of active plugins, compressing the images before you upload them to site, and using a CDN like CloudFlare or MaxCDN.
A mobile friendly website can have a significant impact on its success. A website that displays nicely on mobile devices as well as on desktop screens has better chances of attracting new readers than a website which loads slowly and has display issues on smaller screens.
The best way to make sure your readers stick around instead of clicking away to your competitor’s website is to ensure your website is mobile-friendly by following the tips and practices outlined in this article.
I personally found out that the easiest solution -getting a responsive theme – might not necessarily be the best option because it will still load all or most of your desktop data and that’s not needed. I am referring to the sidebar mostly, which gets pushed way down and will never be seen (but it will slow down your website more). Therefore, I personally believe that getting a dedicated mobile theme is key – or at least a theme that allows for major customization options when it comes to its reponsiveness (but I haven’t found that one just yet, ha!)