What makes a good mobile website?

It’s been well over a decade since the iPhone launched back in 2007. In 2020, mobile devices make up approximately half of the web traffic worldwide. As a result, you might assume that everyone has a good mobile website.

You would be wrong!

Many organizations I speak to in Edmond and elsewhere in the Oklahoma City area still have a website that is not optimized for mobile devices. So who cares? And how can you tell if you have a good mobile website?

First, people care. People browsing your website expect to be able to browse it on their phone easily. They expect clickable elements to be far enough apart that they don’t click on the wrong thing. They expect the text to be big and readable. They expect buttons to be easy to click on. They expect not to have to pinch and zoom on photos and text.

Second, Google cares. If Google thinks your website isn’t mobile-friendly, it will bump it down in the search results. And no organization I’ve ever talked to wants to be lower in most search results!

Google recommends a specific mobile-friendly technology known as Responsive Web Design. A responsive website adjusts its design and layout depending on the size of the device or window it’s displayed on. But it uses the exact same HTML code across all devices.

Just because your website is mobile-friendly doesn’t mean it’s using Responsive Web Design. When mobile friendliness first started being an issue, many different solutions were available. Do you remember ever going to a website like example.com only to be redirected to m.example.com? That was one of many methods.

So how can you tell if your website is using responsive design? Go to your laptop or desktop and open your website in a browser. Then resize your window until it’s approximately the width of a mobile device. If the appearance changes to look mobile-friendly without you needing to refresh the page, it’s likely using responsive design.

If your website isn’t responsive, it’s probably time to update it, as Responsive Web Design has been around since 2010. Contact your web designer or a local digital marketing agency to see if they can help.