It is crucial to design a Mobile-Friendly WordPress Website for your online business. Do you know more mobile users than desktop users on the internet now? And there are more visitors to your website from mobile compared to desktop?
There are many different types of devices out there with different operating systems and screen sizes. Hence, your website needs to work on different screen sizes. It needs to be able to scale and display correctly on different screen sizes automatically.
People are constantly moving. The same goes for your potential customers. And the only device that will be with them most of the time will be their phone. Whether they are waiting for the subway, waiting for their friends or in their free time, their phone will most probably be the thing they use.
That’s why your website needs to be mobile-friendly.
Today, we will be sharing how to create a mobile-friendly website on WordPress in just a few simple steps.
What is a Mobile-Friendly WordPress Website
A mobile-friendly website is a website that is able to provide an optimal viewing experience across different devices and screen sizes. Imagine you are using a tablet or a smartphone, the amount of info or page that can fit into one screen is different. This is why your website layout and content need to be able to show properly on different devices automatically. This is so that your potential customers can visit your page properly.
In a mobile-friendly website, your content should be easy to read and navigate, and the website’s features should be easily accessible and functional on any device.
For example, all the buttons and links should be large enough to tap with a finger on a mobile device. Also, it shouldn’t be too small so that people don’t notice it on the screen. Apart from that, your website’s font type and size should be able to read on both big and small screens.
Mobile-friendly websites are essential because an increasing number of people are using their mobile devices to browse the internet. Therefore, if a website is not mobile-friendly, it can lead to a poor user experience, and cause visitors to leave the site and look for information elsewhere.
In addition, search engines like Google prioritize mobile-friendly websites in their search results, so having a mobile-friendly or responsive website can improve your website’s visibility and increase traffic to your site.
How Responsive Design Works for Mobile-Friendly WordPress Website
Mobile responsive design uses a combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create a flexible and adaptable layout. A mobile responsive website will adapt to the different screen sizes it is on.
Flexible Grid System
First of all, in order for a mobile responsive website to work, you will need to use a flexible grid system. The grid system is designed using percentages instead of fixed widths to ensure that it can adjust to fit different screen sizes. When the users view from different devices, it will adjust the width and height of the website’s elements automatically.
Media Queries
Next, media queries are CSS rules that apply different styles based on the screen size of the device. For example, a media query might apply different styles for a smartphone, a tablet, and a desktop computer. Media queries can be used to adjust the font size, spacing, and layout of the website to ensure it’s easy to read and navigate on any device.
Image Optimization
Then, images are also an important element for a mobile responsive website. Images on a mobile responsive website are designed to be fluid, meaning they adjust to the width of the screen. This ensures that images do not overflow the screen or become distorted on smaller screens.
Navigation Menu Optimization
In addition, navigation menus are an essential part of any website. You want to provide a good experience for your users to be able to look for what they want easily. On a mobile responsive website, the navigation is designed to be easy to use on both large and smaller screens. This might include using a hamburger menu that expands when clicked, or a slide-out navigation that appears from the side of the screen. This will reduce the amount of screen space taken out by the navigation bar.
Touchable Design
Finally, most mobile devices are touchscreen. Hence, touch-based interactions are important for your website. This means you need to design your website so that your buttons and links are touch-friendly. These buttons and links need to be large enough to tap with a finger and have enough space around them to prevent accidental clicks.
How To Optimize Your WordPress Website to be Mobile-Friendly
In order to create a mobile-friendly website with WordPress, it’s easy. This is because the themes are mostly optimized to be mobile responsive.
Let’s look at the six steps to create a mobile-friendly WordPress website.
Step 1: Choose a Responsive WordPress Theme for Your Mobile-Friendly WordPress Website
A responsive WordPress theme is a theme that will adjust itself automatically to fit different screen sizes and devices. When you are creating your website on WordPress, the themes are optimized to be mobile-friendly. You can choose directly from the WordPress theme store for a mobile-friendly one. The information is available from the theme description itself.
When choosing a theme for your website, you must consider how it will look on both desktop and mobile. A theme that looks great on a desktop may not necessarily look well on a smaller screen.
In addition to that, never use a theme that uses too many images or videos. Although visuals are good, they can slow down your website’s loading time too.
Many website or business owners like to add different animations or visuals to their websites. But adding unnecessary elements to your website will slow down your website loading speed. This is bad for your website as well as your customers on mobile will not have the patience to wait for too long.
Step 2: Optimize Your Images
Images are essential for any website. However, using huge and high-resolution images can bring negative effects to your website. It can slow down your website’s load time. It can impact your mobile visitors’ experience, leading to a higher bounce rate.
To optimize your images, you may compress them using an image optimization plugin or tool. This will reduce the file size without sacrificing the image quality. To ensure that your images are scaled correctly and fit well on mobile screens, you need to avoid using too many images.
It’s also essential to use the correct image format for each image. For example, use JPEG for photographs and PNG for graphics and icons.
Step 3: Use Mobile-Friendly Plugins
Not all WordPress plugins are created equal when it comes to mobile-friendliness. First of all, you should not be using too many plugins on your website. Loading too many plugins will slow down your website as well.
When selecting plugins for your website, make sure they are optimized for mobile devices. This includes plugins for forms, sliders, and galleries. Using plugins that are not optimized for mobile devices can negatively impact your website’s performance and cause issues with usability. And sometimes, hurt your SEO as well.
Therefore, it’s crucial to test all plugins before using them on your website and ensure that they work correctly on mobile devices. When you want to implement anything on your website, make sure you test it out on different devices to ensure that it works.
Step 4: Simplify Your Navigation
Mobile visitors are often on the go and looking for quick access to the information they need. They won’t waste too much time on your website if they can’t get what they want instantly. Hence, you need to show them what they want fast.
You can simplify the navigation by removing unnecessary links and condensing your menu items. This includes using a hamburger menu for mobile devices, which allows your users to expand and collapse the menu when needed.
Additionally, you need to ensure that your menu items are easy to read and understand. And most importantly, the font size is readable on a smaller screen.
Besides the navigation, you need to use clear and concise headings and ensure that you organize the content in a logical manner. This will improve the user experience, making your website more user-friendly.
Nevertheless, if you are building an eCommerce store, simplifying your navigation is very crucial too. You want to minimize the number of steps your customers take to provide you with their contact details for you to follow up with them. And the number of steps before they can complete the purchase. Ideally, everything is in less than three steps and you get all the information on the first or second page itself.
Don’t be busy with the bundle or upsell if you can’t even get their contact information first.
Step 5: Optimize Your Content
Finally, optimizing your content for mobile devices is essential to create a mobile-ready WordPress website. Mobile visitors tend to have shorter attention spans and scan through the content only. Therefore, keep your content short and sweet. This can be done by using short paragraphs, bullet points, and headings to make your content scannable.
It’s also essential to ensure that your content is relevant and up-to-date. Regularly update your website with fresh content, and ensure that it’s optimized for mobile devices.
This will improve the user experience, making your website more enjoyable to use. This will have a good impact on your SEO too.
Step 6: Limit the number of Pop-ups
A pop-up is good for lead generation and collecting contact details for your customers. But sometimes it does not necessarily work well on mobile devices.
A mobile screen can be just that big. If you have a pop-up blocking the page that your user is reading, and it’s hard for them to exit, it will have a bad experience for them.
If you really need a pop-up, use the exit pop-up only as they are leaving anyway, nothing to lose given the last try to convert them. Else, you can embed the contact form in your website which will direct them to the contact form section instead of a pop-up that will take up their screen space.
Final Thoughts – How to Make a Mobile-Friendly WordPress Website
It is not an option for creating a mobile-friendly WordPress website. In fact, it‘s a must if you want to build and scale your business online. If you are unsure how your website performs on desktop and laptop, you can check it with Google pagespeed tool. It will show you the performance for both desktop and mobile.
One last tip on creating a mobile-friendly WordPress website would be to leverage on your web hosting service provider service to help you make your website mobile-friendly. Check with your hosting provider and see if they offer any.
