Mobile devices now are almost in every hand in the western world. They have totally changed the way we shop, search and interact. This is not a debate on whether this is good for society or not. But what this does tell you is that your website had better be ready for mobile. If your mobile is not ready then you will lose money, customers, visitors and then business. That much is guaranteed.
So what does having a mobile-ready site mean?
If your site does not “work” on a mobile device, what I mean by this is if it does not have its own layout on a phone or tablet as opposed to that of a desktop. The human eye can obviously take more in from a desktop and if you were to replicate that exact same website dimension on a mobile device then it would be incredibly difficult to view and use.
A mobile-ready site will respond differently to that of a desktop site. They may have a drop-down menu for example, or they may have a call now button which only appears when the user visits the site from a mobile device.
They are many changes that can occur – but all of them are usually designed to make it a better user experience.
Google even has its own site which will check your site for you to see if it passes the test!
You just pop your website address into the bar above and it will generate a report like this for you.
Fortunately, everything build will have you covered.
It will then give you a brief report and then a mock-up version of what your site looks like on mobile (as if you didn’t know already!)
Here is the result from a site I have worked on
If your site does not pass the test it is most likely due to the text being too small to read and the links being too close together. This is what I mean when the site tries to replicate the exact same version of the desktop screen. It just doesn’t work.
And Now It Gets Worse If You Are Not Mobile-Ready!
As of right now, Google is punishing sites that do not have a mobile-friendly version. That’s right, your site will be ranked lower in the search engines if you do not have a mobile-friendly version. It is putting mobile users first.
Rightly so. The world is changing and with more and more devices connected now than ever before it is only right that the websites people are visiting on their mobile devices are the most user-friendly.
It’s not just Google either. Facebook too is sending more visitors to sites from mobile than from desktop now. I personally have noticed this within my Facebook ads account. The ad spend is usually lower and more engaging from those on mobiles than those from desktops.
This is because they are forcing the users to use their own app – which is of course used on mobiles and tablets. Thus keeping the users within their own platform most of the time.
Advertising networks are spending more and more money each year on mobile networks. This will only increase over the next few years too.
So really it is essential that you have your website mobile-ready.
I build all my sites so that they comply with all the latest mobile requirements so you have nothing to worry about in that regard.
If you want to talk further about it with regards to your site then please get in touch.