Is your content mobile-friendly? Here are 5 ways to make sure it is!
We’ve officially hit the place where more people are using smartphones instead of desktops to access the internet, and Google has taken notice. Starting with the infamous mobilegeddon update in 2015 and extending into today, mobile-friendly content has been a huge focus for websites everywhere.
Today, I’m going to show you five ways you can enhance, organize and format your content so it looks great on mobile devices and provides a solid user experience all-around.
5 Ways to Improve Your Mobile Content
Whether it’s simple changes or complex technical adjustments, today we’re looking at five ways to improve your website’s mobile content and make it look the best it can be on mobile devices.
Ignoring mobile optimization is not only a bad idea for SEO reasons, but it can also cause your site to lose countless sales. Don’t worry, though, it’s not hard to make some improvements today.
1. Limit (or Eliminate) Pop-Ups
People on mobile devices are far more finicky than those on desktops. As a mobile user myself, I know that I’m always in a hurry trying to find what I need quickly on the go. On smartphones, pop-ups can be a huge mistakes if they aren’t done correctly.
On a desktop, it’s usually readily apparent how to close a window that appears, but this isn’t always the case on mobile. Google has said in an official announcement that these mobile ads, known as “interstitials” will be penalized if they damage the user experience.
Things that are required by law, like age validation pop-ups, won’t hurt your rank, but annoying interruptions that seek to grab an email or sell a product will hurt your SEO. You should avoid covering the main content while the user is on the page.
2. Use Percentages For Width
If you have a mobile-friendly theme, something like this should already be in place, but it’s good to know either way. When you’re using CSS style sheets on a page, you can specify the width of elements like columns or images based on two things: pixels or a percentage.
As an example, if you set the width to 50%, it will make the width half of the screen size that’s accessing the page. This ensures that your users won’t have to scroll horizontally, which is extremely annoying.
If you choose to set the width based on pixels, the width of the elements won’t change with the screen size, in which case you could end up with the wrong size on certain devices. That being said, you can use pixel size if you’re also using media queries.
3. Make Your Site Mobile Responsive With Queries
Media queries can be used to make your website responsive to mobile devices, but they’re not for beginners. These are techniques used in CSS coding that allow you to not only change things like width, but also the shape of the content and the surrounding elements.
Many professional WordPress themes for creating a blog will have this kind of responsiveness in place, but you can get a little more flexibility if you utilize these types of queries. To break them down a little more, you can think of these things as ways to give your site the ability to stretch or shrink based on the device being used to access it.
These queries can also be used to change how large or small text is as well, giving you the ability to tailor the mobile experience with a high degree of control.
4. Get Distractions Out of the Way
You want your users to quickly and easily access your content. To reach this goal, you need to ensure they are not being assaulted by too many elements at once. This is especially true if these elements load at different speeds, causing the page to jump around on mobile devices.
A perfect example of something that can go, is the sidebar that we’re all used to having. In a mobile setting, this element is relegated to the bottom of the page. The aforementioned media queries can be used to remove elements like this when the screen is smaller.
5. Look to the Future
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs) are something Google has been championing and it looks to be the future of mobile content if they have any say. These pages have a specific framework that improves speed and provides a much smoother user experience overall.
You can get similar results with heavy optimizations, but this provides an easy and accessible way to make your content super mobile-friendly.
Future concepts like this will help you stay ahead of the curve, and Google is already displaying AMPs in the search results. Check out this guide on how to make AMP pages to get started. In the meantime, stay on the lookout for other innovations like this one.
Final Thoughts
Mobile devices are the preferred way to access content online. As a result, big companies like Google are taking notice. How do you keep your content optimized for mobile users? Let us know in the comments!
Charles Goodman is a web designer and consultant with over a decade of experience. He takes pride in helping website owners stay ahead of mobile trends.
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