Although there was a push to make websites friendlier to use on mobile devices before Google added mobile-friendliness and user experience as ranking factors, this action made responsive websites the industry standard. This move was supported by the fact that, at the time, about 50% of all online users were on mobile and this number has only increased in the years since. Now, websites that are not mobile-friendly risk ranking lower on search engine result pages. So, what can you do to ensure your WordPress website is mobile-friendly?
Improve Your Site’s Speed
It is easy to forget that many people who consume information on the internet on mobile devices are on slow network connections. Because of this, websites that are not optimized for speed will load too slowly for them, making their experience terrible and thus they are not mobile-friendly.
Before you start optimizing your website, you should use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to see how fast your website is. Some things you can do to improve your site’s speed include choosing a faster web host, joining a Content Delivery Network, updating your themes and plugins, optimizing your images, and more.
Use a Mobile-Friendly Theme
Your theme can be a bottleneck in your efforts to make your website mobile friendly. Websites that have been built with mobile users in mind will perform much better than those that were not. Because developers all claim their themes are great for mobile users, check out online reviews to see which developers are telling the truth. You could also test different themes on dummy or test hosting accounts to see which themes perform well for mobile users.
Use Mobile-Friendly Plugins
Just like themes, all the plugins you use to display content on your website should be mobile-friendly. A common user experience annoyance for users is having to scroll horizontally to see the information that is “out of screen” and that is coming from a plugin. The plugin should resize so that it fits screens of different sizes. A great example is Coupon Plugin, an easy to use coupon plugin, which is 100% mobile-responsive for a great user experience no matter the device website visitors are using.
Optimize Your Navigation
One annoyance that people often have online is websites that are not easy to navigate. Things get even trickier for mobile users who have to navigate various menus to get to the content or pages they are looking for. The navigation on your website should be easy to understand and use on mobile devices. Avoid using too many navigation levels and ensure the clickable area is large enough for those with larger fingers.
Optimize Your Buttons
If you want your website to be easier to use for mobile visitors, you have to optimize your buttons. Not only should they be big enough to be noticed, but they should also be big enough to click. Remember, a mouse pointer is much more precise than a finger and so this issue might not affect desktop users.
If you want people to get what they came for on your website, you have to make it mobile-friendly. Doing so improves user experience and mobile-friendly websites rank better, so doing this is crucial for your SEO, too.