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Building Perfect Mobile-Friendly Websites Easily on WordPress

Web Design

Mobile-friendly websites are a must for every brand these day since smartphones are used by people around the world. Let’s find out more about mobile-friendly website, what benefits will it bring and how to build one on WordPress.

What are Mobile-Friendly Websites?

Mobile friendly websites are the websites designed to perform well on smartphone or tablet screens. The websites may shrink down to smaller sizes or change layout to fit smaller screens.

If we dig deeper, there are many words related to mobile friendly website design : mobile friendly, mobile first, and responsive design. There are some differences among the definition of each word, but in this blog, we will refer to them as mobile friendly.

The Benefits of Mobile Friendly Websites

Why should you consider developing the mobile friendly website. Here are the important reasons.

1. It creates better user experience

Surely, mobile friendly websites create better user experience for users who visit your site from mobile devices. User experience is very important. If your website is hard to read and function on mobile screen, the site visitor will have a bad experience and might not even consider looking at the amazing products or services you have to offer.

2. More people are browsing from their mobile

Growth in mobile internet users has been outpacing that of desktop internet users as smartphones become more accessible and convenient for people to do more complex tasks, such as web browsing. At this current rate, we can see more web traffic from mobile devices in the near future. Websites must therefore must become more responsive and mobile-friendly to accommodate the growing number of traffic from mobile devices, because if it yours isn’t, they will definitely be swiping away.

3. Keep the customers on your websites

With website that compatible with users’ screens, you will not irritate visitors eyes and mind. They tend to stay on your website longer and explore more pages on your website. If the website is easy to read on their screens, it will make they feel good about your brand and even put them in the right mood to spend money on your brand. Which will then increase the chance of them buying products or using the services on your websites.

4. Better brand image

Having a mobile friendly website will enhance the image of your brand. It tells the customers that your brand has good customer service. It make your customers know that you care about them and will only offer good things for them. Plus, mobile friendly websites show that your brand is modern, up-to-date, and always growing. The customers will trust in your brand more than they ever did.

Building Mobile-Friendly Websites on WordPress

WordPress is websites builder that make creating websites easier for brands and blogs. Here is how to make your WordPress websites mobile friendly.

1. Check if your website is mobile friendly or not

To check whether your website is already mobile friendly or not, you can do it easily by accessing your website on your smartphone. Another way to do this is to use Google’s mobile-friendly test. You just need to type in your website’s URL and it will tell you if the website is suitable for mobile devices.

2. Use responsive layout WordPress theme

Responsive layout theme will tailor your websites to any screen sizes. The key of this layout design is to make everything flexible so it can change it size and position to display well in any screen types.

There are lots of theme provided on WordPress, most of them a already responsive since people use mobile devices to access websites more than before. Use the responsive layout to design your websites will make your web design tasks easier. It is quick and their are lots of designs to choose from. Plus, some of the theme are free. What a great way to make your website mobile friendly and save some cost.

If using a pre-made theme are not for you, you can also create your own responsive layout using WordPress development tools as well.

mobile-friendly website - responsive theme
source: WordPress themes

3. Use responsive plugins to go with the theme

Find a WordPress plugin that help you better mobile friendly website design such as WPTouch or WP Mobile Menu. Sometimes, the responsive theme might not be enough to make a perfect mobile friendly website, using plugins will boost your mobile friendly website’s performance.

Tips to Perfect Your Mobile-Friendly Website

Apart from making everything flexible and using responsive theme, here are tips that will make your mobile-friendly website user-friendly.

Make sure your mobile website is touchable

Mobile websites need to be touchable since the devices are touch screen. When designing the website, make sure that the clickable icons are big enough to touch with the finger. If not, the user will end up not be able to click on icons and get a bad impression of your brand.

Avoid using pop-up

Pop-up may be fun for desktop website, but with mobile device screens, it can be a turn off for the users and cause bad user experience. Mobile device screens have much less room to work with the pop-up. If you really want to use pop-up make sure it is small enough and can be close down.

Make sure the fonts size is readable

Mobile screens are small, but you still need the fonts to be big enough for the users to read them easily. You also don’t want them to be too big and take up all the space. Using too big fonts size might cause the words to be unreadable on mobile screen since it all the characters are not on the same line. The size of the text should be at least 14 pixels.

Keep the content short and concise

With limited space, mobile websites are not mend to contain too much contents and texts. Simplify your content to be concise, choose words that can truly make impact. Mobile users want everything to be done quick and on the go, so don’t ramble on with your content.

Consider using hamburger navigation bar

Hamburger navigation bar is three line icon that will show main menu when users click on or touch it. This type of navigation bar work effectively in saving space for mobile-friendly websites.

source: Starbucks Thailand

Wrap Up

Mobile friendly website is essential for every brand today. Think of the users first when designing a mobile friendly website. WordPress theme will make your work easier but don’t forget to consider other elements too. Utilized the tips to make your mobile-friendly websites unforgettable.

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