The Essentials of Building a Mobile-Friendly Website

As a keen observer of the web development environment in the world, you must be aware of the mobile revolution that is sweeping the industry. Mobile usage continues to rise and rapidly so in the emerging economies of Asia and Africa. This has been further spurred on by the increased preference of the users for the mobile experience- the experience of the application adapting or responding to their needs.

Go Responsive

You can build a truly mobile-friendly website only if you go responsive. This means the use of mobile-optimized content, more use of images, videos and easier navigation. You need to remember that mobile users want a front end that is not cluttered. They also need only the necessary navigation options because too many of them will totally ruin the mobile experience.

Move over multiple URLs. Your website has to have a single URL for both the desktop as well as the mobile version. A website that is tailored for the mobile will have all of its components designed to function in a manner that responds to the way the user wishes to use the website.

Go Hybrid

 It is not enough to merely have a mobile website. It needs to include the mobile application component as well. This is because your website needs to be multi-functional and not merely cater to a particular segment of your business. And a hybrid functionality in your website is a perfect way to bring in customers who want to rapidly and in a simple manner, perform the tasks in a mobile application. Some of the common errors that you need to avoid are:

1. Mobile pages taking long time to load

2. Blocked CSS or Javascript

3. Content that can’t be read or fault redirects

The Google Impact

With Google announcing that it will downgrade websites that are not mobile-optimized, the need for your website to go mobile is all the more greater.  Take Google’s mobile-friendly test to see where your website ranks in the list. It is through Google that customers come to your website and traffic is generated. And therefore SEO is an important part of your long term business prospects. So, you better be prepared!

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The Basics of Building a Mobile-Friendly Website

Earlier, when mobile phones were fast emerging as an alternative to desktops, the quest on every business owner’s mind was ‘How do I make my website mobile-friendly?’ Now with the mobile having established its pre-eminence, the focus is on building a full-fledged mobile website for your business. So, is your website truly built for the mobile?

Mobile First

The mantra today is to go mobile-first. The basic idea here is that you should first design your mobile site, and then expand the pages of that website into tablets and desktops. Why do we do that? Well, you might have a problem making a website primarily designed for desktops mobile-compatible but you will never encounter problems in loading the desktop version of a page design for the mobile.

So What Are The Things That Are Fundamental In Designing A Mobile Website?

Firstly, if you’re starting to build a website for your business, then you would do well to find a content management system that automatically creates a mobile version of your site. This would save you a lot of time that would otherwise go in channelling resources to make your site responsive. Most Responsive features are in-built in a CMS nowadays.

Secondly, you need to make sure your site is responsive in the true sense. The URL and HTML code of your site must remain the same but your sites CSS must be responsive in the sense that it has to adapt to the type of device the user is using. This can be done with dynamic serving or RESS where based on the user’s request, your site sends different CSS and HTML.

Thirdly, keep the content short and succinct. Your content must give just what the user requires and that too only when the same cannot be conveyed in the form of images or video. This is because mobile phone users often find it difficult to read lengthy content on their devices especially when what they came looking for was something else.

Lastly, perform a thorough user-experience test for your website. Lay mobile users should be able to identify with your brand through your website and it is only in the user acceptance testing (UAT) stage that you get to know this.

What we’ve mentioned above are just the basic points in building a mobile website. In other words, this is but the tip of the iceberg. For more, keep an eye on this space!

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The Benefits of a Mobile-Friendly Website

From desktops we moved to smartphones to tablets and now to smartphones watches. We could club smartphones, tablets and smartwatches in one category because they are all essentially offshoots of the mobile revolution. Users today would much rather prefer to visit a website that is mobile optimized than one that is not. This is because an entire generation has become used to the mobile experience and rejects anything that falls short. With emerging economies in Asia and Africa leading the mobile growth path, this march is only beginning to gain strength.

In this article, we try to explain what has caused this sea-change in user preferences in just over half a decade. Here are the 5 reasons we think your website should be mobile-optimized:

1. Reduced Load Times

Firstly, the average user today expects a site to load as soon as he’s clicked it. Site URLs today are being widely shared on messaging and social networking platforms and therefore the urge for faster load times is even greater. Now, compare the loading times of a desktop site and a mobile-website. It should be clear as daylight to you that mobile-websites are much faster and since faster loading times form an important part in winning the trust of the customer, you get an A on the user experience front.

2. Your Site Won’t Be Taken Off Search Rankings (Yes!)

This is a warning to all those who are still thinking about going mobile. It is not about not being able to gain an advantage over mobile websites, it is about not being there at all. Google is not even listing sites that are not mobile-optimized. And, the more mobile friendly your site is, the greater chances it has to be listed higher on its rankings.

3. Simpler Navigation

It is a pain to navigate a website that is not optimized for mobile viewing on your smartphones. To be mobile friendly is to cut down on the number of navigation options on your standard site. Giving more importance to Call-to-action buttons like ‘Contact us’ or ‘Buy now’ will be much more useful than confusing the user (who is already constrained by limited space) with too many options that are essentially interconnected and can be replaced or done away with.

4. Better Engagement with The Customer

Today’s users prefer communication through images and videos rather than through text. A mobile website experience tends to be much more personalized than a desktop site. Whether it is swiping to sift through pictures in a gallery or looking at a restaurant in a map and immediately calling it, mobile offers you advantages that only it can. In essence a mobile-website shows that you mean business.

5. Lower Maintenance Costs

Building a mobile website means not having to duplicate your content or reformat it the way you do with a desktop site and also comparatively simpler debugging options. Though your front-end design may cost you a little, it is more than offset by the huge advantages that you get over a longer period of time.