Pages on your website that look fine on a desktop can become frustrating to navigate, slow, or even downright unusable on a phone. When that happens, visitors don’t bother to struggle through it—they leave and visit your competitor instead.
Mobile friendliness isn’t just about shrinking a website to display on a smaller screen; it’s about how your website is thoughtfully laid out, structured with proper HTML, and optimized for real-world use by your website visitors. If you're here, chances are you know your website isn't entirely mobile friendly, at the least, you know there's room for improvement, but you might not know how to help improve it. Let us dive into a few possible reasons why your website is not mobile friendly, and what you can do about it next.
It's Not a Mobile Friendly Website Theme
Websites come in many forms, and none are created equal. The CMS (Content Management System) and the website theme you use are important to making an enjoyable experience for both your desktop visitors, but also your mobile visitors.
Was your website built using a proprietary website builder, like Wix or Squarespace? Or are you using a WordPress theme from the marketplace? Was your website built by a web designer who uses a theme builder such as Divi or Elementor? The choice you're presented with brings its own set of unique challenges.
- Does your theme advertise mobile-friendliness?
- Did your website builder build the theme from scratch?
- When tested, does it appear clean and well-adjusted for a mobile screen?
Your solution is dependent on your budget and your current theme. A professional website designer can help you understand what you've got and recommend how to achieve a mobile-friendly website within your budget.
Your Pages Are Not Optimized for Small Screens
Your webpages may be usable and "good enough" usability for desktop, but are they hurting your mobile visitors' experience? Your website layout may functionally do what it needs to "stack" your content for smaller screens, but is that enough to help your visitors navigate through your website and understand your value proposition? Here are a few further user experience considerations to ensure a responsive web design
- Links, buttons, and other 'tap' targets are sized right, usable
- There's no overlapping of page elements
- Your layout isn't causing an unintentional 'side scroll'
In addition, none of your most critical page elements should be hard to reach or less visually prioritized then your less important parts of the page. On mobile and tablet screens, consider hiding purely aesthetic parts that distract from your conversion call-to-actions. Generally, your website experience should remain the same across all screen sizes. Instead of hiding anything, consider reducing your website design and content so your potential customer is not overwhelmed by too much information. Give your website visitors key information and make it easy for them to find the correct path to conversion.
Your Multimedia Is Slowing You Way Down
Too many high-resolution images, unoptimized lengthy videos, or embedded content from other websites may look good and be no problem for your desktop visitors but can actually drastically change the experience for your visitors using a phone.
Using an internet connection at home with high speeds, your website may load fine but know that many phone users may be using their mobile data to access to your website. They may have slower or less reliable connection to the internet. When a mobile visitor reaches your website using a mobile connection, they're essentially downloading all the multimedia placed on the page they're accessing with a single page load.
- Use a theme that serves smaller copies of images for smaller screens
- Use a compression plugin or CDN service
- Effectively cache your website
- Avoid or reduce 3rd party embeds, i.e. YouTube embeds
Again, consider your priorities. For example, you have many photos you'd like to share, instead of placing a full gallery on the homepage, instead narrow it down to a few excellent ones to highlight. Put the rest on a less critical page, like a gallery page, then link to it. Don't upload the full resolution, instead resize to a much smaller or compressed copy of the image, then upload it to your website. Some website builders take care of this for you, but if not, there are plugins for WordPress that can help reduce some of the effort.
Another read to consider: Why Slow Websites Kill Great Design
You're Using Too Many Third-Party Scripts
Remember your internet connection plays a huge role in how quickly your page will load. You should always be trying to serve the smallest in size web page with this in mind. If you have a heavily vested interest in your website marketing and analytics, this likely pertains to you. A third-party script can include Google Analytics to a YouTube embed, a tracking script provided by a marketing service you use, or an embedded third-party form or widget.
- Reduce your overall scripts, prioritize
- Don't track web analytics if you aren't using the insights
- Avoid embedded content where possible
Not sure if you're loading too many scripts or if you have any third-party scripts on your website? A local web designer can usually assist you in this diagnostic. However, if you're willing to try it out yourself, there are many no-cost tools to help you run a test and find these scripts. Here are a few to try:
Google PageSpeed Insights - a top recommendation
Perfecting Your Mobile Experience Can Be Tedious
There is no single way to ensure a happy mobile experience for your potential customers, but many. If you're not looking to get technical with it yourself, but you know you could use some help with your website, we recommend seeking a local web designer to help you spot room for improvement, and to make more technical changes on your behalf.
Looking for a North Idaho based web designer? Ever Marketing is based out of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and specializes in expert website design and support. Are you thinking your website is not mobile friendly? Then we hope you reach out to contact us.
