Is your site mobile-friendly?

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The popularity of smartphones means that they are the preferred way for users to get access to the information they want when they want it.

So if a mobile user searched for your site, what would they find?

How ready is your website for mobile users?

A website that works well on computers, or even tablets, does not mean optimal user experience when on mobile phones. Especially with so many screen sizes.

A simple trick for anyone that is planning on developing a new website, or revamping their existing website, is to use a mobile optimised or responsive theme when using a platform such as Wordpress. Wordpress makes creating a new website easy and with the vast list of expertly crafted themes available, you don't need to be a computer programmer or a tech genius to get a professional, fully functional, mobile friendly website going in a snap.

This is increasingly important these days, because when your website is not mobile friendly, Google will be less inclined to show it in searches, and even limit your ads to people using their mobile phones.

How to win friends and increase Google search ranking

You need to remember that Google’s primary goal is to help it’s users find the information that is most relevant to them. If they didn’t do that, people would start to use other search engines.

Part of helping users find the relevant information is also about how easily and effectively users can consume and understand the info. According to their own statistics, 40% of online smartphone users will be less likely to come back to a mobile site if it does not quickly satisfy their needs.

So if your website isn’t mobile friendly, takes too long to open on a mobile device, the buttons are too small to click making it difficult to navigate, and users are bouncing away and leaving it as soon as they get there, Google will take note and rather not suggest your site.

Smarten up for the smartphone users

So, to help you on your way to making sure your site is optimised, and won’t chase away those all-important mobile users, I’ve put together a list of some great, free tools:

Google Mobile Speed Test
This tool will let you check what your site will look like, and how fast it will load, on a mobile phone using a 3g internet connection. What I like most about it is that it also gives you an estimation of the percentage of people that will not wait for your website to finish loading before they move on to another website. Find this super useful tool: here.

Google PageSpeed Insights
Another great tool from Google - this will analyze your site’s content and performance for mobile and web, and then give you a list of suggestions on how you can improve and optimise it. It will even fix and optimise files and images from your site that you can download and use immediately to improve speed issues. Find this free tool: here.

Free Toolbox
Here you’ll find our collection of what I think are coolest free tools on the web, that can help any site improve its performance and optimisation. See the list of tools: here.