As of September 2022, 59.98% of website traffic comes from mobile devices. To keep that audience engaged, you must have a mobile-friendly website. An effective mobile website design brings numerous benefits that help your site rank higher.
An update in Google’s ranking algorithm shows how crucial it is to build a mobile website. Google does mobile-first indexing since it has seen more search queries from mobile devices than desktops. Search engines prefer the mobile version of the web content better than the desktop version.
However, that doesn’t mean your website doesn’t need to be desktop-friendly. Around 40% of the traffic comes from PCs meaning you need to look out for all types of devices. Read along to know how you can make your website convenient for all users, in just a few easy steps.
Everything You Must Know About Mobile Web Design
What is mobile website design? It is the process of improving your website’s user experience for mobile devices. It considers everything from how much content to show on smaller screens to what features should or shouldn’t be included on the mobile version.
As the number of mobile users has increased, designers and developers start with building a site suitable to view on small screens before making it responsive for larger screen sizes.
Benefits of a Mobile-Friendly Website
Here’s how mobile website designs can benefit your site and save you from spending thousands of dollars.
Cheaper than App Development
It costs around $3000 to $30,000 to hire an app developer. The price depends on the idea, complexity, location, etc. Still, $3000 is too much money to spend, especially when you’re a start-up.
A mobile-friendly website is a cheaper alternative. It costs a few hundred dollars but the price can go up if you want to include sophisticated features. Want an even more cost-effective or free alternative? Build a mobile responsive website Strikingly. It is a website builder that you to create a gorgeous mobile-friendly website in just a few minutes.
With Strikingly’s drag-and-drop features, building a website has never been easier. Select the template you love and customize it using Strikingly’s intuitive site editor. It’s as easy as creating presentations in PowerPoint. You can add and create sections in just one click, easily change background colors, images and videos, and include features your store or blog would need.
Strikingly enables its users to create and edit their website in mobile mode or on their phones. Using the Strikingly app, you can build, manage, and create a website on your phone.
Image taken from Strikingly
Moreover, you can monitor your site’s analytics, manage orders, and respond to your audience from your phone.
You can even include mobile action buttons such as click-to-call, send an email, locate your physical store on the map, etc.
Here are a few effective mobile website designs created using Strikingly.
Image taken from Strikingly user website
Image taken from Strikingly user website
Building a website with Strikingly is completely free. However, you can opt for any of the yearly (or longer) plans to gain access to premium features.
Image taken from Strikingly
Increased Sales in Your Online Store
As browsing habits have changed, people prefer shopping online from their phones. This is another reason to have an exquisite mobile website design. Including mobile-friendly features in your online store will create a better user experience which will lead to conversions of first-time visitors into frequent shoppers.
Rank High Easily
Your website’s mobile friendliness is an important ranking factor. If your website is mobile-friendly, it can earn brownie points not in just Google’s eyes, but other search engines' as well. This will lead to higher ranking and a wider audience on almost all search engines.
To check if your website is suitable for mobile devices, you can use Google’s mobile-friendly test tool.
The Principles of Creating a Mobile Website
There are 7 principles of creating a mobile website design that will help in improving user experience.
1. Make Your Website Scannable
Scannability is one of the key ingredients of a great mobile website design. You need to figure out what information your target audience is looking for and display that information that they don’t have to search for it. Because most users don’t read a webpage word for word, most likely they would just scan and read the information they want to see.
Make sure that the CTA buttons are noticeable and on your homepage. Another tip is to keep the navigation bar of a different color than the web page so that it is easily visible.
2. Keep the Layout Simple
For smaller screens, the simpler the design, the better. Trying to display everything at once would require you to keep the elements’ sizes smaller. That might decrease the readability of your website.
Go for a one-column layout because a multi-column grid will appear cluttery on a small screen and avoid the horizontal scroll. A horizontal scroll creates a bad user experience for mobile devices and fails Google’s mobile-friendly website test.
3. Improve Readability
While designing, remember that viewers will visit your site on a small screen, so your text needs to be easily readable. Here are three things to consider:
- Font style. Choose a font size that will look equally good on every screen size. Helvetica can be a great choice.
- Color contrasts. You can use many tools available online to check whether the background and text colors go well together.
- Font size. Avoid defining the size of your text using absolute units such as cm, inches, etc. Instead go with units like pixels (px), rem, or em so the size of the text can appear according to the screen size. For mobile devices, 16px would be great.
4. Reduce the Effort Users Have to Put in for Data Input
If you have an online store, you will be asking your users for information about the product they want to order, their address, etc. Filling out forms on the phone isn’t very easy. Only ask for necessary information.
Use forms inline validation that will check the user input in real-time and tell them whether it’s valid or not. You can also include an autofill feature for fields like addresses which will automatically fill their address according to their GEO location.
5. Keep the Touch Targets Larger
Keeping the touch targets such as buttons or links larger is one of the key elements for a good mobile website design. Remember, these buttons will be tapped on by fingers of different sizes. They must be large enough that anyone can tap on them without accidentally tapping on another button or link.
Make sure to keep the links and buttons far apart as accidentally opening or tapping another button can frustrate users.
6. Keep the Page Speed as Fast as Possible
Elements like huge-sized pictures, videos, and animations can slow the loading speed of a web page. Users won’t wait that long for your page to load. According to research, most users will wait for only two seconds for the page to load. Others would leave after waiting for three to four seconds.
7. Include the Share Features
It’s common for people to start a task, like shopping for a product or service, on the phone and finishing it like, filling in the shipping and billing information from laptops or PCs. If you include a shared product or service option, it will allow them to share the link to themselves through email or Messenger and make a purchase later.
Mobile-First Approach or Desktop When Designing a Website?
As the number of mobile users has increased, many web designers go for a mobile-first approach when designing a website. To determine for which device you should start designing your website first, you need to consider numerous factors.
With a desktop-first approach, you can add a broad range of features. Later, you can decide which of those features will be a good fit for a mobile site. Then add them to your mobile website design. But if you start with a mobile-first design, you would have to search for features suitable for both mobile and desktop. Or create necessary features for a desktop separately.
Consider these factors to make the decision:
- If you already have a website, analyze if you have more desktop users or mobile.
- Know your audience. Research if the majority of your audience would be mobile users or PC.
- Consider the products or services your brand sells. Are they important to mobile users or desktops?
Other things you can consider, are location, age range, profession, etc
Conclusion
As the number of mobile web users is increasing, it’s crucial to make your website mobile responsive. A great mobile website design has numerous rewards such as boosted rankings, increased sales in your online store, etc. A mobile-friendly website is a cost-effective alternative to a mobile app and Strikingly can help you build a website that is suitable to view across all devices.
Even though the majority of the site traffic comes from mobile, your website should be suitable to view across all devices. You don’t want desktop users to leave with a bad impression of your brand.
