Why Do I Need A Mobile Friendly Website And The Steps To Take?

Traditionally, people have been accessing websites through laptop and desktop computers, but that is changing thanks to the wide range of portable devices including tablets and smart phones that can connect to the internet. This means an increasing number of your prospects and customers are interacting with your website through mobile gadgets on the go.         

The consequence of this is that websites that are not user friendly and mobile friendly tend to lose a lot of traffic. As a matter of fact, some businesses have reportedly lost some significant margin on their bottom line and unless things change, this is bound to be the trend into the future.

Understanding a Mobile Friendly Website

Simply stated, mobile friendly websites refer to sites that are specially designed to accommodate smaller screens such as those on Android smart phones or iPhones without losing the quality of the content.

Initially, websites were designed for standard desktops and this meant a lot of pinching and squeezing when accessing the same on mobile gadgets. Mobile optimized websites have the following advantages for mobile users.

• Text that is larger and much easier to read

• Navigation that is mobile friendly

• Touch friendly page elements and buttons

• Faster download speeds

In the age we are in where traffic is more conscious and detests delays, it is imperative that website owners do all they can to make their sites mobile-friendly. If your site takes longer to load, traffic will quickly move to your next-door competitor and probably make a purchase there.

If search visibility, lead generation, user experience, and brand identity are important indicators to you, then having a mobile-friendly website designed for you by the best SEO in Los Angeles can be a game changer.

What it Takes to Have a Mobile-Friendly Site

The first step is to test whether your website displays well on mobile devices and you can do this through Google's mobile-friendly test. Once you establish your website needs some working to bring it up to speed with mobile optimization, you can take any of the following three steps.

Creating a Mobile Version of Your Site

This is the quickest way of enhancing the mobile-friendliness of your website. However, it means you will have two separate sites; one for desktop and the other one for mobile. Managing two different sites can be hectic and may lead to users getting frustrated especially where they find less information or content on one as compared to the other.

Also all SEO errors would need to be duplicated and all mobile pages would need to be different than the desktop version.

Using Mobile Plugins

Some content management systems such as Drupal, Joomla, or WordPress have solutions through plugins that can make your current website mobile friendly. For instance, WordPress has mobile plugins such as JetPack and WPtouch; Joomla has plugins such as JoomlaShine and Responsivizer while Drupal comes with MobileTheme and ThemeKey.

These do not work to the same degree as your actual site coded as responsive. Adding plugins can slow your site down and cause conflicts with other code on your site.

Mobile-First Responsive Design

Inasmuch as the above solutions are useful in the short term, the real deal is in redesigning your site using responsive web design practices. This includes planning your site and prioritizing the arrangement of content so that both mobile and desktop users can find utility when accessing it.

Through responsive design, your website can conform to virtually any screen size or device and this brings flexibility to your traffic. It is totally up to you in decoding the approach you want to take, but the bottom line is your traffic will not take it kindly if your website is not mobile friendly.

Content is originally published at: https://www.rebelmouse.com/willie_robinson/why-do-i-need-a-mobile-friendly-website-and-the-steps-to-take-2304731655.html