You’re reading this because you’ve noticed a decline in your site’s organic web traffic. Perhaps, you’re still using the same old web design you had when you first launched your site.
This may come as a bit of a surprise, but a bad website design could be causing more harm than good—that is, losing web traffic. As you know, Google has changed recently its search algorithm.
Why?
Simply to boost the rankings of mobile-friendly websites. And also, Google wants to punish desktop-only sites.
This simply means if your site isn’t optimised to meet the mobile responsive standards set by Google, then your business might be jeopardy.
It’s time to make some changes and turn things around—boost those rankings!
How?
Start by optimising your website. And here’s how:
The Future and Mobile
Think about this for a second:
What do a park, bus, restaurant, libraries, shopping malls and the dinner table all have in common?
Well, if your answer is:
Everyone either sitting, standing, reading, or walking is looking at their smartphone or tablets.
Then, good observation skills!
The point is—mobile usage is taking over (if it already hasn’t). In fact, it will continue to skyrocket especially now that phones are getting larger screens, built with AI capability and feature more robust hardware.
In fact, these mobile devices have surpassed desktop units for more Internet use. Wow! If that isn’t a clue enough, then what is?
Give or take a few more years, smartphones and tablets will take over web browsing. So it’s better to take action now than try to save your business by then.
Either Beat or Catch up with Competition
According to reports, 62% of companies worldwide who have a mobile-first website have seen an increase in sales compared with desktop-only sites. As you may know, this isn’t much of a surprise since 52% of users admit that they prefer engaging with mobile responsive websites.
In other words, by making your website mobile-friendly, you’ll be better equipped to catch up or even beat the competition and possibly rank higher in Google search results pages.
You need to prove the world that you mean business by being more innovative and thus increasing profit from your business.
A Higher Rank in Google
As previously mentioned, Google boosts the rankings of mobile-friendly websites. If a user googles a particular thing online, for example, web design London, Google will automatically show mobile-responsive sites higher than desktop-only sites.
You should know that Google rolled out its new algorithm last May 2016. If your organic web traffic has plummeted since then, perhaps the culprit is your website.
It’s high time to optimise your website so that you’ll be able to recover the lost traffic and in the process rank better on Google SERPs.
How to Make Your Site More Mobile-Responsive
First thing’s first—test your website first to find out which parts you need to improve or fix. Google Mobile-Friendly Test is a tool you can use to check how a visitor can use your page using a mobile device. Also offered are tips on how to improve your website for mobile devices.
Google Analytics is another tool you can use to check which mobile devices your visitors frequently use to visit your site. This allows you to better optimise for specific mobile screens based on that data.
Tip 1: Optimising for Touch Screens
You may have noticed, but the single biggest difference between a desktop and a mobile device is the mode of interaction. Where a mouse or a touchpad is used on a desktop, users use their fingertips to swipe and zoom on mobile devices.
You need to consider that a responsive site isn’t enough—it must also be optimised for touch screens, offering greater UX. Include touchscreen navigation as well.
Tip 2: Increase Site Load Speed
People are on the go. We are on the go. This fast-paced world we live in demands web pages to load as quickly as possible. Faster loading speeds can increase conversions and could decrease bounce rates. This means slow load speeds will lead your visitors to your competitors. Who wants that?
Here’s what you can do:
- Reduce the images. Large format images can tremendously slow download times. Check your site which images you can get rid of—only unnecessary ones. Then conduct an a/b testing with and without those images to find out if it makes any difference.
If the images will need to stay, then optimise them for mobile usage.
- Optimise plugins and themes. Even if everything else is optimised, a bottleneck phenomenon could still happen on your site speed because of bad plugin and theme code. Additionally, concatenate and minify plugin CSS and JS files.
Tip 3: The Right Font Size
Wouldn’t it be easy to read blog posts in the right font size, without having to zoom in and out, on a mobile device? The incorrect font size, where you need to badly zoom in to read a text, will definitely ruin UX.
To remedy this, configure a viewport to ensure the fonts are rendered to the correct sizes on varying mobile screens. Although this is a relatively simple process, some CSS skills might be needed to get this done.
Tip 4: Use a Better Theme
If you’re using WP, you might want to upgrade to a better theme, if you haven’t already. Opt for WP themes that have mobile-friendly designs. Replace the old theme of your site.
Viola!
You’re done.
If not, you can always utilise a plugin in order to optimise your site for mobile devices, although this isn’t a highly recommended method since this will make your site load a bit slower. It’s an ideal temporary fix, however.
Tip 5: Implement AMP
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)—an open-source website designed to improve web content and ad performance. In other words, it offers a smooth browsing experience for mobile device users.
Once implemented, AMP generates an optimised version of your page that, in split seconds, can be viewed on mobile devices.
Not only will your site load faster, but also AMP-powered sites are ranked higher by Google on mobile search results pages.
AMP can be implemented on your site using a free WP plugin. Note the keyword here—FREE.
Final Thoughts
Continually test your site until you arrive on the perfect mobile responsive web design that will not only improve UX but also increase conversions, drive traffic to your page and boost Google rankings. It’s basically up to you!
What are you waiting for?
View Our Mobile Responsive Methods
