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The 6 Step Process To Boosting Your Site's Mobile Friendliness

3 mins read

Google has announced there will be a new mobile friendly update this year. Sites that are mobile responsive will likely see a boost in their rankings as a result of the new update. If your site isn't mobile friendly, then here is how you can boost your site's mobile friendliness. 

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Google's mobile friendliness initiative 

Almost a year ago, Google gave a deadline for all websites to be mobile friendly. This deadline became known as 'mobilegeddon', as no one was sure what to expect when Google's update came into effect. For website owners who listened to Google and made sure their site was mobile responsive, they had nothing to worry about. Some sites even saw an increase in their rankings as a result!

New Google mobile friendly update

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Last week, another announcement was made by Google, saying there will be another update in May which will benefit mobile responsive sites. 

It's imperative your site is mobile responsive to ensure you don't miss out the benefits. These features on your site can help make your site more mobile friendly. 

(Test your website on Google's Mobile-Friendly test to find out if your site is responsive.) 

1) Use a mobile responsive website design

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Having a mobile responsive design for your website is the easiest way to ensure all your site features are responsive to mobile devices. Of course, getting a new website design is an additional expense. But having a responsive design means every aspect of your site will respond successfully. 

A website designer can plan the layout of your site so every feature is responsive and your design looks good on desktop as well as mobile and tablets. 

If you're using a mobile responsive plug-in, it will help to make your site more mobile friendly, but it won't be as effective as a mobile optimised website. 

2) Create a mobile version of your website

If you're looking for a temporary solution until you can buy a responsive design, then you can create a mobile version of your site.

There are sites out there that can help you create a mobile version of your website without it getting too technical.

  • Duda is an easy and flexible system to help you create the layout and design of your mobile site. 

CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, have mobile friendly plugins which help make the site more responsive for mobile devices. 

On WordPress, one of their most popular plugins is WPtouch which gives you the opportunity to create a mobile version of your WordPress website.  

3) Adjust font size

Google's mobile friendly test will tell you if your text is too small. Just because the font looks big on a desktop, doesn't mean it will be big on a mobile device. 

The font size on your site, should be at least size 14.

You should also consider making CTA buttons bigger to catch the attention of your online visitors. 

55% of visitors visiting your site will likely spend just 15 seconds before they decide to leave. Badly displayed content will just encourage more people to leave. 

4) Include a viewport meta tag in your site code

Viewport meta tags help Google and other search engines understand how the pages and content of your site should be displayed. 

The code is important for sites that are being viewed on different platforms. As more people are accessing the web via mobile devices, it's imperative this code is there to help browsers display your site successfully.

This code directs the search engine to display your site so it fits the screen.

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> 

Insert this responsive tag in the <head> of your site code. 

5) Turn off autocorrect

Today's phones are very intelligent, sometimes this is great whilst other times it can be a nuisance. How many times has autocorrect made your life difficult when you're trying to send a text?

Mobile users can get frustrated if autocorrect gets in their way when they're trying to submit information into an input field. 

Go into the coding of your input fields and switch off the autocorrect. 

<input type=text size=20 autocorrect=off>

Turning off autocorrect will reduce the chance of people leaving your site in the middle of a purchase. 

6) Fix your images to a specific size

On desktop, it doesn't always matter too much if your images are too wide because desktops have larger screens and can fit most sizes.  However on a mobile, large images won't look right and can prompt people to leave if site navigation is badly affected. 

In your site CSS, you can include a size code so images will automatically fit the device screen. 

Include this size code on your images to make them fit:

max-width: 100%

The importance of having a mobile friendly site

In future, Google will continue to benefit sites that are mobile responsive. We can't deny the growing fact that more people are accessing the internet via mobile devices. And Google is catering for the increasing number of mobile users. 

As Google has announced the rankings of mobile friendly sites will see a benefit, this means you can't miss out on this opportunity. Increase the mobile friendliness of your site before May! 

The 22 ranking factors you need to boost your rankings

Having a mobile friendly website is just one factor that helps to increase rankings. Use our FREE cheat sheet to see the most important 22 ranking factors you need to boost your site rankings and increase organic traffic: