Google and Mobile Friendly Websites
1. Start From Scratch
First of all, forget about the layout of your desktop website. Your mobile website won’t and typically can’t look like your desktop version since your content has to fit a much smaller display. Therefore, take the time to come up with a design for mobile devices only. Think about what functions users are looking for on your website and make sure they are legible and clickable. Furthermore, it’s a good idea to create shorter headlines for mobile websites to ensure that they won’t get cut off or become unreadable.
2. Down To The Bare Bones
Consider reducing your content to the most important elements of your desktop website when preparing for your mobile version. It can be helpful to rank your website content from “has to stay”, over “could stay if there is space”, to “can go”. You can apply this grading system to visuals as well. For the images that will make it to the mobile version of your website, make sure to use a smaller version of the visual or new visuals if you don’t have smaller sized images.
Now that you’re done adapting your desktop website to mobile, it’s smart to test the mobile version to see if it is navigable or if it could use improvement. Think like your users and try to, for example, place an order for your product. You can also use services like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test, which will analyze a given URL and tell you if the page is mobile-friendly or not. Read Google’s criteria for a mobile-friendly page and compare it to your mobile website.
With a growing number of mobile users who access websites from their mobile devices, it’s crucial to have a mobile version of your desktop website. The best practices provided above will help you create a functional mobile-friendly website and, most importantly, avert mobilegeddon.
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