On April 21, 2015, Google released a new algorithm update in the name of “Mobilegeddon”. It punished the websites that were not mobile-friendly. Google designed and released this algorithm update to give more emphasis on mobile-friendly pages. As the consequence of it, many mobile-friendly websites received better position/ranking on the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) of Google. At the same time, the websites that lacked mobile-friendly web pages lose their ranks on the SERPs of Google.
Immediately after it, the necessity and popularity of mobile-friendly websites have increased noticeably. Now, almost all businesses look for a mobile friendly or all-device-responsive-website designed by professional website developers.
A mobile-friendly website ensures many benefits as given below:
• More website visibility
• Better user experience
• More website traffic
• Improved performance in both search market and display market
• Faster download speed
• Portability and connectivity
• Significant brand identity
• New advertising opportunities
• Better engagement with mobile-specific features like click-to-call, mapping functions, and many like these
How to create a mobile friendly website:
Use responsive design
The responsive web design ensures an optimal viewing experience and improved interaction experience. A responsive web page easily gets set well in various media environments and adapts the screen sizes (resolutions) of various internet access devices. It becomes easily visible with a minimum endeavor of resizing, panning, and scrolling across a variety of devices like Desktop, Laptop, Smartphone, Tablet, iPod, etc.
To do so, professional web designers and website developers use flexible layouts, flexible images, CSS3, Bootstrap, media queries, fluid, and proportion-based grids. Responsive web pages are smart enough to detect the visitor’s screen size and orientation. It can adopt the changed layout accordingly.
Include a viewport meta tag
The viewport is a virtual area followed by the browsers. It helps search engines to determine how every piece of content is scaled and sized on a web page. It tells a browser that your web pages need to fit the available screen sizes. Using it in the header section is always good and advisable.
Use high-resolution images
It is always advisable to use high-resolution images. It will ensure better user’s experience and high standard. The latest smartphones are using high-definition screens. These need a high-resolution image that is nearly double of a desktop resolution. Getting high-resolution images helps you avoid blurred images and other pixel related issues.
Take care of button sizes and font sizes
You must consider button sizes and font sizes. Button sizes and font sizes matter a lot for the smartphones and other mobile devices. The font size must be at least 14px. Similarly, the button size should be at least 44px by 44px (according to Apple’s design guidelines).