If you were to date back 10 years ago, the dawn of smartphones was quickly arising into the existence of human nature. As some grandparents refer to it, “how do you fit a whole computer into that little thing?” Great question. The answer? We have no idea. But what we do know is smartphones are now the focal point of the millennial generation. Whether you’re going on a date and you need to research which movie is rated well, planning the next vacation because of the lovely Canadian winter weather or if you’re just lying in your bed at night and you want to do research about something that peaks your interest; it’s all tied to your website being mobile friendly.

There’s nothing worse than going to a website and the insanely big desktop version appears which you have to zoom in on everything to see it, or the website looks mushed together like digital scrambled eggs (see photo below).

As a business you have an obligation to the technology world to make sure your website can be viewed normally on a mobile device or smartphone, otherwise you’re turning off potential customers. Here are some tips on how to ensure your website is mobile friendly:

1. Have a responsive design

It all starts with the compatibility of the design. Even though you may “love” a certain layout, it may not be responsive to different kinds of devices. Having a responsive design means your website will be very flexible (not literally). The design will mold to the correct size and shape to every device that comes to your web address, making it easy for people to browse.

2. Don’t have a default zoom

This might be the number one cause of death to a lot of mobile websites, the auto-zoom. It means every time you drag your finger to a certain part of the website and then let go it zooms to that area. This is easily fixed by having what is called a “viewport meta tag” which is nerd for automatically setting the width, height and scale to the appropriate device the user is using.

3. Make it easy for users to read

According to Online Strategist, Kristina Cisnero from Hootsuite.com, your default text should be size 14. This allows users not having to zoom in and out constantly, making everything more legible.

4. Make sure you’re always running tests on your site!

There’s more than one smart device in today’s world, so make sure you test over and over and over and over again. And by test we don’t mean just see if it looks good, test the links, buttons, scroll and functionality. The reason? You have to make sure it looks good on everything like iPad’s, iPhone’s, iPod’s, Android tablets, Android phones, Windows phones and even older generation smartphones.

So to conclude, make sure you’re taking care of your website compatibility on smartphones and devices making it organized and functional (see photo on the right), because it could make or break if a customer buys your products/services.

.

.

.

.

.

Citations

https://blog.hootsuite.com/9-tips-to-creating-a-mobile-friendly-website/

https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/industry-leading-mobile-websites/

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/10-horrendous-mobile-websites/79519/