What are Websites Optimized for Mobile?
Google primarily uses the mobile version of content for indexing and ranking. In order to ensure that your website will be easy to find and easy to navigate, it is crucial that you ensure that your mobile site is optimized for mobile. The following are mobile-first design principles that will ensure your mobile site is working for you and your visitors:
Mobile design. The web was originally designed for desktop users, but now users are increasingly accessing websites on mobile devices. Ensure that mobile users have a frustration-free user experience (UX) by designing using prioritization (e.g., making call-to-action (CTA) buttons prominent), simplifying layout so content is at the forefront, and ensuring that all of your pages are easy to navigate.
Low bandwidth design. Consider that your mobile visitors may not be on devices or in locations with fast loading times. The more graphically intensive your mobile page is, the slower it is to load. In order to reduce the size of your web pages consider resizing images, reducing file sizes with compression tools, and using different file formats such as SVGs that scale to screen size.
Caching. Caching involves copying a version of a page so that it is accessible at any time. Your mobile site can be designed to conserve resources by providing new users cached versions of web pages.
Preloading and lazy-loading. When pages are pre-loaded, they inform the browser about potential navigation choices and then renders those pages before users click to navigate to them. When pages are lazy-loaded, they inform the browser to only load content that is currently in view, rather than loading the content of an entire page.
Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). AMP is an open-source web component framework that is designed for fast-loading.
Responsive design. Ensure that your mobile site is designed to adapt to different screen sizes, resolutions, and devices. An example of responsive website design is when a website accommodates a user switching from their smartphone to their tablet by automatically adjusting for resolution, image size, scripting abilities, and user settings.
Code optimization. Web programmers can optimize code and increase page speed by reducing image sizes, removing unnecessary HTML, optimizing intensive scripts. Minify Resources (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) are a collection of tools from Google PageSpeed Tools insights that can help with this process.
Cross browser testing. Test your mobile site on many different browsers, operating systems, and display resolutions. Tools available to help with this task include Google’s Web Developer Chrome Extension, BrowserStack.com, and CrossBrowserTesting.com.
Mobile video. Ensure that your videos are optimized for mobile by following best practices such as using custom controls, using a play/pause video button, and providing forward/backward navigation.