Being a mobile friendly website is pretty much mandatory in the industry these days. Smartphones and tablets are the most used computers to surf the internet as the stats stand today. So if your website is not up to scratch for mobile, you are losing a very large portion of click throughs to your website as it is very unattractive and very inconvenient for the people trying to use your website and they will more than likely look elsewhere.
Using a responsive design for smaller websites is a much easier path to go down as it will keep everything on a single URL. This makes everything much easier to interact with when people stumble upon your website! It also makes it easier for the Google algorithm to search and index you. Google also suggest the web designers and developers use responsive web design as an industry standard now days, this in itself should make you more eager to do so. After all Google is one of the largest tech companies in the world!
More larger websites will require a more dedicated mobile site! Larger web sites struggles with a responsive design as there is quite simply too much going on or way too much information to keep it small and responsive, so sometimes it requires a whole new website being built just for mobile devices. Even though it sounds like much more work it will ultimately save you work down the track, when your “responsive” website starts becoming “unresponsive”.
Making sure your website renders correctly on all devices is quite important! You can do this after you have the website up and going, then checking with your own smartphones and tablets. If you don’t own multiple computers, phones and tablets you can download an emulator which can be of a great help as you will get almost every main device made by big companies.
Considering the usage of images is quite important, remember that 1800x1200px image may look great on your brand new high definition computer but may struggle to be resized by a responsive design. So make sure to take thought on what size and type of images you will use, then make sure they render correctly! It’s not worth risking aesthetic looks over functionality.
Avoiding flash is probably a good idea! Flash makes things extremely hard for search engines to understand what is going on and don’t work on most mobile devices. So consider if that little bit of flash is worth while putting on your website and can not be replaced by an image or informative bit of text and maybe even a javascript animation.
Remember keeping your website mobile is pretty much an industry standard so don’t miss out! A few hours work, may help your brand and your website look more pleasing to potential customers and visitors. Take a look at our process and services to make sure you do not miss on mobile traffic!
Find more about website usability www.webwizards.com.au/usability/
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