In a 2018 study performed by RescueTime, the average person spends around 3 hours and 45 minutes per day on their mobile devices – with most time being spent on connecting on social media, browsing websites, and shopping online. With each generation, from Millennials to Generation Z, more people are using and growing up with ever-evolving technology.

Google has recognized that more people are spending more time and doing more things on their mobile devices, so they’ve put a website’s mobile-friendliness into their ranking algorithms for search results. Designing your website to be mobile friendly also ensures that your pages will perform well on all devices and screen sizes, and is considered a critical part of your online presence. Google has found that the amount of smartphone traffic now exceeds desktop traffic in many countries.

If you’re not sure if your website is mobile-friendly, you can utilize Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool. This easy-to-use tool allows you to enter any website page’s URL, and you’re able to see what that page looks like to a mobile user. If there is a redirect on the website, the tool will follow it.

Using the Google Mobile-Friendly Test Tool generally takes the test less than a minute to complete. When viewing the results of the test, you’ll be able to see a screenshot of what the page looks like on a mobile device. Below the screenshot, additional results will show a list of any mobile usability problems. Web Rocket Media has identified six elements that make up the majority of mobile usability problems.

Incompatible Plugins

Plugins like flash are not generally supported by most mobile browsers. Web Rocket Media recommends a web design that uses broadly-supported web technologies like HTML5.

Viewport not set

Viewports tell browsers how to scale and adjust the page’s dimensions. If there isn’t a viewport set, the pages won’t load correctly on a mobile device.

Viewport not set to device-width

Probably worse than the viewport not being set at all is if the viewport isn’t set to the device width, which means that the website can’t adjust to the different sizes.

Content wider than the screen

If you need to scroll horizontally to see all the words and images on a website, it’s not mobile-friendly. This happens when the site is built with absolute value.

Text is too small to read

A website is considered to not be mobile friendly if the user needs to “pinch to zoom” so they can read the words on the site. Once a viewport is set, you should also make sure the font sizes scale properly within the viewport.

Clickable elements are too close together

Any elements that require touch, like buttons, input fields, or navigational links shouldn’t be so close to each other that a user on a mobile device can’t tap what they want without also tapping another element.

If you’re looking to build a website that is responsive and mobile-friendly, or upgrade your existing one, contact Web Rocket Media today.