A quality desktop website has been an important part of business success for quite some time, but a good mobile site has become significantly more important in recent years. In fact, when Google indexes websites to determine ranking, it now prioritizes mobile sites over desktop sites. With Google embracing mobile-first indexing, it’s more important than ever to make sure that your mobile site has the highest quality design. We’ve compiled a list of the most important factors of a quality mobile website to help you assess whether your site could use a redesign.

One Website for All Devices

In the earlier days of mobile websites, designers would create a separate website specifically for mobile devices. These sites were often simpler, limiting content based on their best guess of the most valuable content for mobile users. However, with mobile-first indexing, it’s important to make sure all of your content is available on your mobile site to ensure the best possible search ranking. Additionally, it’s a good idea to make all of your content available to mobile users simply for the best possible user experience. For these reasons, it’s important to have one website that is responsive across all devices, instead of creating a separate mobile website. Having one website for all of your devices is the best way to maintain a strong Google rank and to ensure the best user experience.

Quick Load Times

Quick load times are an essential factor for website success. People will often click away from sites that load slowly, meaning your images, buttons, text, and other parts of your website need to load within two seconds of a user clicking on your site. Quick load times are especially important to consider on mobile devices, because load speed can be affected by the quality of a user’s service at any given time. For this reason, it’s important to do your part to ensure quick load times. For tips on reducing your website’s page loading speed, click here. To have a mobile website that users enjoy, be sure to do everything you can to ensure the fastest possible load time.

Responsiveness

If your website isn’t responsive on mobile devices, people will not want to use it. It’s important to have a layout that looks good and is responsive across every time of device. Buttons on your mobile device should be highly visible and easy to click. Your font should be easy to read and every action that someone can take on your site should be quick, simple, and easy to both execute and understand. To have a successful mobile website that people enjoy and want to use, it’s essential to ensure your website’s responsiveness.

Easy Navigation

Mobile devices have inherently small screens, meaning users need to find what they’re looking for quickly. To ensure easy navigation, many people opt for mobile menus, which provide tabs for the different sections on the site. These menus will also appear when the desktop site reaches a certain size and will help users easily navigate your mobile site. Labels for different sections and pages, menus, and buttons should all be highly visible to ensure easy navigation. On a quality mobile site, users will not need to zoom or swipe to see the whole site. Instead, it should fit to the screen. When users can easily navigate your site, they will be able to find what they need and enjoy their experience on your site.

Modern Design

If the design of your website looks outdated, it will look even more so on a mobile device. A more modern design will focus on sleekness and simplicity, which are essential to a positive user experience on a mobile device. Older designs often include bright colors, a wide selection of colors, small fonts, and too much text. All of these factors can be very difficult to digest on the small screens of mobile devices. If your site is hard to read on a desktop site, it will be much worse on a mobile device. For this reason, you should have a modern design that will fit to any screen and be easy to read. If your site is hard to digest or difficult to read, you might need to update to a more modern design.

ImageWorks, LLC | CT Web Design

Our custom CT web design solutions are built around your individual needs, and focused on your specific messaging, functionality, and inbound lead generation needs in mind. Our state of the art knowledge and continuous research and development efforts always take advantage of the newest technologies, insuring your project will be cross platform compatible, mobile ready, and easy to use. 

Over 20 years and a thousand projects, we have continually improved our process for understanding your business, defining your goals, performing a competitive analysis, translating your message to a compelling website, and integrating calls to action. This one-of-a-kind approach and un-paralleled level of experience leads to the creation of new business and measurable marketing results.