Desktop browsing has remained largely flat in the last 12 months, but the impact of mobile has been dramatic with a 186% increase during 2016. In the UK ‘multi-platform browsing’ has become the norm. Mobile browsing has for the first time overtaken desktop browsing, so yes, it is vitally important that your site is mobile ready.
Mobile Ready Checklist
So what does mobile ready mean?
- to load quickly
- a simple menu system and easy to navigate
- clearly readable text
- appropriately sized and compressed images to save data
- to be ‘responsive’
Check your site speed
To load quickly your site needs to be built and coded well, and be stored on a good server with a fast response time. On a mobile in particular your site should be loading within 3 seconds, or risk the user moving on. You can check the speed of your site at website such as Pingdom
Complicated menu systems make navigation difficult on most touch screen devices. Have you noticed the hamburger icon on some websites whilst browsing on your mobile? Shown on the screen shot below the ‘hamburger’ icon in the top left acts as the menu. This is the sign of a well designed mobile ready website, the menu system is easy to navigate and provides large text options making it simple for the user to ‘touch’ their way around your site.
Responsive Design
Clearly readable text, image compression and responsive design are a must for mobile sites and is something that google check for when ranking sites. If a site is ‘responsive’ it means that the image and text sizes change to match the size of the screen the user is viewing the site on. So if you view a site on a mobile the site will look one way generally landscape, if the user is viewing the site on a tablet or mobile the site will change to be in portrait. The site will do this intelligently placing the text and images in the best possible areas for the user to view. The site intelligently handle calculations to make sure all font sizes are readable, and images are correctly and appropriately sized.
Google provide an excellent tool for testing how mobile friendly your site is – Mobile Website Speed Testing Tool – Google
If you’re worried about your site and would like to make sure that your site is mobile ready please give us a call or email. We’d be happy to discuss further and advise you on the best solution for your website and business.