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Mobile Friendly vs Mobile Optimized vs Responsive Design: Everything You Need To Know About The Mobile Version of Your Site

Making a website mobile ready is Pretty high on the request list for businesses and organizations developing a new website. But, there are a flurry of conditions surrounding cellular. Mobile friendly, portable optimized, and a newer term: reactive design. What's the difference between these? Why is it significant?

In fall 2012 Peter Sondergaard,
Senior vice president at Gartner, a world-wide IT investigation and research company, estimated that by 2014 there will be more internet browsing from mobile devices than on conventional desktops or laptops. We've seen our own customers' site analytics for mobile users jump from an average of 5-8percent in 2010 to 16-20% in 2011. 2012 is showing a similar increase. There is not any doubt that mobile cannot be ignored.

With mobile devices ranging from
Handhelds to tablets, knowing how your site will display on the selection of formats is crucial. When terms like cellular friendly, cellular optimized, and responsive design appear in development discussions, you will know the difference.

MOBILE FRIENDLY WEBSITE

Mobile friendly describes a Website That displays accurately between your desktop/laptop computer and a mobile device like a handheld phone (iPhone, Android, Blackberry) or tablets (iPad, Kindle, Galaxy, etc.). While it is going to appear smaller on a phone and might not work flawlessly on a touchscreen tabletcomputer, a mobile friendly website will be perfectly functional. Many developers view mobile friendly as a"best practice" for all website developments.

Ensuring Your Site is mobile Friendly is critical. As we discussed above, the proportion of mobile users is rapidly increasing. What are the essential qualities of a mobile friendly website?

Text-based phone numbers, physical addresses, or email Addresses that could trigger a call, directions, or email message from your mobile device

Slideshows or image rotators that operate without Flash support (Adobe Flash is not supported by Apple and a few other mobile devices)

Small image sizes to allow for fast loading over Mobile connections--don't count on even a 3G connection

Here are some examples of mobile
friendly websites:

MOBILE OPTIMIZED WEBSITE

A mobile optimized site is a far more advanced website. Mobile optimized means that the site will reformat itself for a list of handheld or tablet devices. Larger navigation buttons, reformatted content, and differently optimized images look when the user is on an iPhone or other device.

Why reformat? Reformatting allows The site to easily engage a large mobile audience when key buying decisions come up. A growing number of customers are turning to their mobile devices right in the store. Having a website developed that enables the user to easily navigate and engage from the small screens of the handheld means reaching a decision quicker.

What are some Great formatting Elements that go into a mobile optimized site?

Simplified navigation that is"thumb" friendly with Massive touchpoints, especially for critical contact info

Reduced graphics that don't disrupt the quest for Critical information such as product listings or commoditized content

Avoid making users kind unless absolutely necessary

Give users the option to view the desktop version of
your site

Here are some mobile optimized Sites worth checking out of your handheld:

RESPONSIVE DESIGN WEBSITE

As site design continues to Evolve, a fantastic form of development has come into play. Responsive design is a way of developing a site that's completely flexible irrespective of device. As opposed to detecting a particular browser type or device type, the website automatically orientates itself depending on the screen size of the device. A blend of reformatting and re-optimizing the site as a whole give a sensible flexibility beyond imagination.

Responsive design, while more
Costly to develop, is the wisest development investment if you are managing a consumer or audience-base that's busy on mobile devices or need to make purchases on the go. Impulse purchases are evident, but this is every bit as critical for commodity content such as blogs or news outlets.

WHAT ABOUT SMALL BUSINESS AND
MOBILE WEB?

Mobile browsing--from tablets to Smartphones--is growing at an unprecedented rate. The consumer's enthusiasm for immediate gratification of their informational needs requires effectively delivering your product (physical or intellectual) via the mobile web.

What about small business or a
non-profit organization? Is cellular friendly good enough? Should an organization talk about a mobile optimized version? Will investing in a responsive design site bring a measurable return?

Excellent questions with answers only you can provide. Every situation will be different, but give serious thought of what percentage of your website visitors are on mobile devices? Google Analytics will inform you. What does your current site look like? Pull out your smart phone and find out.

If your eyes just flickered over To your smartphone and you do not know the answer...that may already be your solution.

Mobile Optimization

Mobile optimization is the process of ensuring that visitors who Access your website from mobile devices have an experience optimized for the device.

What is Mobile Optimization?

Every year people spend more and more time in their mobile Devices and tablets, but many websites still aren't made to account for different screen sizes and load times. Mobile optimization requires a look at site design, site structure, page rate, and much more to be sure that you're not inadvertently turning mobile visitors away.

Mobile SEO Best Practices

If your site is already well optimized for search engines, there Are just a few additional things that you need to think about when optimizing for cellular devices and Google's move to mobile-first indexing.

Page speed

Due to hardware and connectivity issues, page speed is even More important for mobile users than desktop users. Beyond optimizing images, you will want to minify code, leverage browser caching, and reduce redirects. More information on page speed can be seen on our SEO Best Practices for Page Speed page.

Don't Block CSS, JavaScript, or graphics

In the old days, some portable devices couldn't support all of These elements, so webmasters of cellular sites blocked one or all three. However, for the most part that is no longer true, and the Smartphone GoogleBot would like to be able to see and categorize the identical content which users do. So don't hide it. These elements are also critical to helping Google understand whether you have a responsive website or a different mobile solution.

Site design for mobile

Mobile devices are simplifying and revolutionizing the ways
sites are designed. "Above the fold" no longer has meaning in a world where we scroll endlessly

Don't use Flash

The plugin may not be available on your user's phone, which Means they will miss out on all of the fun. If you wish to make special effects, use HTML5 instead.

Don't use pop-ups either

It can be difficult and frustrating to attempt to close these on a mobile device. This might lead to a high bounce rate.

Design For the fat finger

Touch screen navigation can lead to accidental clicks if your Buttons are too big, too small, or in the path of a finger that is trying to find the page to scroll.

Optimize titles and meta descriptions

Remember that you're working with less screen space when a user Searches with a mobile device. To show off your very best work in SERPS, be as succinct as possible (without sacrificing the quality of the information) when generating names, URLs, and meta descriptions.

Use Schema.org structured data

Because of the limited screen area, a search result with rich Snippets is even more likely to stand out than on a desktop. Read more about Schema.org structured data.

Optimize for local search

If your business has a local element, remember to optimize your Mobile content for local search. This includes standardizing your name, address, and telephone number and including your city and state name in your site's metadata. More info on local SEO can be found here.

Mobile site configuration

Probably the most important decision you'll make when setting up A site is deciding whether you would like to use a responsive, dynamic serving, or separate website configuration. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Google prefers responsive design but supports all three options as long as you have set them up properly.

Responsive web design

Responsively-designed sites use CSS3 media queries to serve the Same content to mobile and desktop users having a fluid grid and a flexible design to automatically adapt to the size of a user's screen.

Responsive designs use media queries to target the layout based on screen width, orientation, and resolution. For example, you could use the following CSS to teach browsers how to display content for a screen that is 420 or fewer pixels wide:

Code Sample

@media display and (max-width: 420px)

.class

[styles for This course here]

And to link to another stylesheet instead, put the next HTML in between your tags:

Code Sample

="" type="text/css" media="screen and (max-device-width: 480px)" rel="stylesheet">

Responsive designs allow you to have a Number of these media Queries so that users on miniature mobile displays, larger-than-average mobile screens, and even tablets can all see a site that looks designed for their devices.

Use a Google's
Mobile Testing Tool to confirm that your site is optimized for cellular.

Dynamic serving

If you do not have the resources for a complete site redesign or Want to display different content for mobile visitors than you do for desktop ones, one solution would be to use 1 URL to display unique sets of HTML and CSS based on which kind of device your visitor is using (also called discovering user representatives ). This may be useful, for instance, if you're a restaurant who needs a mobile visitor (who may be drifting your neighborhood) to find a sampling of testimonials and a map to your location rather than your whole website.

Displaying different content based on the user agent is known as Dynamic serving and it's done with the Vary HTTP header, which looks like this:

Vary HTTP Header

GET /page-1 HTTP/1.1

Host: www.example.com

(. . .rest of HTTP request headers...)

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Content-Type: text/html

Vary: User-Agent

Content-Length: 5710

(... rest of HTTP response headers...)

Example in the Google Developers Blog.

Simply put, this means that the content displayed will vary Depending on the user agent requesting the page.

Dynamic serving is not the perfect compromise that it might seem to be. For one, it depends on having an updated list of user agents, which means that every time a new mobile device comes to market that record has to be updated. And it's not uncommon for desktops and mobile devices to be wrongly served with the HTML for the other device. Read more about common pitfalls.

Separate mobile URL

Another option is to create a second, parallel site for mobile users. This allows you to create totally custom content for mobile traffic. To avoid URL confusion, most parallel cellular sites utilize an"m" subdomain.

Parallel cellular sites can be as pristine as dynamic serving Websites at sending visitors to the perfect version, so make certain to make it simple for visitors who wind up in the wrong place to click over to their preferred experience.

You will also want to make sure Your site redirects are all in place and as Lean as possible to decrease page speed. And to avoid duplicate content issues, you'll have to install rel="canonical".

SEO Basics: How to improve your mobile site

Here is the thing: your Website should be mobile-friendly. In fact, this might just be your number one priority. If you wish to boost your mobile search engine optimization , you have to improve the performance of your site, plus you have to be sure that it offers users an superb mobile experience. In this search engine optimization basics article, you'll find a summary of what you need to do to improve your mobile site.

When is a website mobile-friendly?

A Website is mobile-friendly when it:

loads properly on a mobile device like a
Smartphone or tablet,

loads lightning fast,

Presents content in a readable fashion, without Users having to pinch and zoom,

Offers ample room to navigate by touch,

Offers additional value for mobile users,

is instantly understandable for search engines.

Why is cellular SEO important?

Mobile SEO makes sure
Your mobile site gives the finest possible presentation of your content to a mobile device user. Since our world is increasingly mobile-oriented, it has become imperative that your website is mobile-friendly. If your site isn't, or not properly, available for mobile users, you're going to miss out on a good ranking in the search engines and so miss income. Therefore, you ought to do everything in your power to make the mobile version of your website as good as possible. In actuality, it ought to be excellent!

Since the beginning of This year, Google uses the mobile version of the website to determine its rankings. If your site is not up to scratch, or if you present less content on your mobile website, you'll have a tough time getting a good ranking. If you don't have a decent cellular version of your site yet, you best make a fully functioning one, preferably as a responsive design. Google has a great getting started guide to get you going.

How to improve your mobile website

To improve your Mobile SEO, you need to focus on a few things:

Make sure your site is responsive

Improve your site speed

Don't block JavaScript, HTML and CSS code

Don't use interstitials or pop-ups

Do not use too many redirects

Choose the Right viewport

Verify mobile-friendliness

Tell Google about your site

Responsive design

There are multiple Ways to make your website available for mobile users. The most important one is responsive design, which is the tech Google advocates. With a responsive design, your site lives on one URL, which makes it easier for Google to understand and index it.

If you use WordPress,
Odds are that your theme is already responsive and can adapt to all screens. Make certain to check how your site scales in Google Chrome's Developer Tools. If it does not scale correctly, you should talk to your web developer about fixing it -- or choose a different theme.

Improve your site speed

Among the most Important things you can do to enhance the cellular SEO of your site is to enhance the loading speed of the website. Time and time again, studies indicate that people leave sites that load slowly, often never to return again. Speed has been a ranking factor for years, and Google is increasingly focusing on fixing this common issue.

Optimize images

If there is one quick Win to increase your site speed, it's this: Boost your images. Don't load those 3000 x 2000 pixel HD images on your site. Scale them to the proper size and make them smaller with a tool like ImageOptim or WordPress plugins like WP Smush.

Minify code

Every request your Site has to make has an effect on site speed. You have to work on reducing these orders. One way of accomplishing this is by minifying code. This means that your group and concatenate assets like JavaScript and CSS, and as a result, the browser needs to load fewer files, leading to a faster site. This sounds hard to execute, but a plugin such as WP Rocketcan take care of all your caching needs.

Browser caching

By using browser Caching, you are telling the browser that page elements that don't change often can be stored inside its cache. In this way, the browser only has to download new and dynamic content whenever it visits again. Again, this is something a plugin such as WP Rocket can help you with. Or you can also do it yourself if you like.

Reduce redirects

A redirect leads A visitor from one requested page to another, because the requested page was moved or deleted. While this contributes to a good user experience if done well, the more redirects you use, the slower your website will be. Do not make endless redirects. Additionally, try not to keep links around that point to deleted posts that are redirected to new ones. Always make direct links.

Do not block resources like JavaScript, HTML and CSS

We have said it before, And we are going to keep saying it: Don't block resources like JavaScript, HTML and CSS. Doing this makes it harder for Google to get your site and that could result in bad rankings. Assess your Google Search Console to see if you're blocking resources.

Improve legibility

Make sure that your mobile site is perfectly readable on mobile devices. Use different devices to check if your typography is in order and, when necessary, make adjustments . Typography can break or make the user experience of your website.

Improve tap target sizes

People hate it when Their finger can't hit a button, link or menu item without any fault. Sometimes designers haven't given sufficient thought about the dimensions of the buttons. Mobile users get frustrated when navigation is unnatural or hard. Repair it.

Choose the Right viewport

The viewport Determines the width of the webpage for the device used to see it. By specifying a suitable viewport, you make sure that visitors with specific devices get the right version of your website. Fail to do this, and you might just reveal your desktop website to a small-screen smartphone user -- a big no-no.

Do not use interstitials or pop-ups

Starting this year, Google will penalize websites that use big pop-ups or interstitials to promote newsletters, sign-up forms or ads. These often get in the way of the consumer immediately accessing the content they requested. Do not use them, but if you have to, be sure you abide by Google's rules.

Test your site and tell Google about it

Before you start Working on your cellular SEO, you should run a Mobile-Friendly Test on Google to determine where you should start. During your work, you should keep testing to see if you make progress. If your website is optimized, you want to tell Google about it so that it can be assessed and indexed. Use Search Console to remain on top of the performance of your site.

Investigate Google AMP

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is a new initiative by Google and others to get web pages to load super fast on mobile devices. By wrapping your content in special HTML code, you can optimize the pages in ways that Google can use to give them special treatment. Pages are cached by Google and introduced with a stripped down presentation to make sure it gets delivered at light speed.

AMP is still Relatively new, but growing rapidly. Nearly every site can benefit from integrating this technique. For those who have a WordPress site, it is not tough to get started; simply put in the official plugin. This takes care of most of the setup. You can find more information about Google's guidelines.

Conclusion

Mobile is the future,
but that future is now. Do everything you can to fix your mobile site and make it perfect, not just in Google's eyes, but, more importantly, your visitor. Mobile SEO is not only about great content and a flawless technical presentation, but more about creating a user experience to die for. Once you've achieved that, you are on your way to the top!

In 2016, the inevitable happened, and mobile overtook desktop as the primary device used to access websites. This didn't come as a massive surprise because, as far back as 2015, Google reported that more searches were conducted on mobile than on any other device category.

In many industries, this may be conservative and, At the agency I head up in the UK, Bowler Hat, our B2C customers are seeing up to 85 percent of all site sessions conducted on mobile devices.

Suffice it to say, mobile has well and truly arrived. However, while responsive design has been around for a while now and is quite well-established, nearly all sites tend to fall down on usability. That is, nearly all sites continue to be built for desktop and then dialed back for cellular. This form-fill that has been mildly annoying on desktop is an absolute pig on mobile. Even if it's responsive.

This is not good enough in the mobile-first world We are rushing toward in 2017.

In this article, I am going to look at how you Can make certain you're truly optimizing for mobile users. We will look at the essentials of responsive design and page rate, but we'll also look beyond this at user experience tailored to mobile devices. We'll then wrap up this with a mobile optimization checklist which you can use to identify optimization opportunities.

Our goal here is to go the extra distance to Create fully mobile-focused websites; to delight our customers and drive conversions; to utilize cellular optimization to develop a tactical advantage over the competition. And, of course, Google wants to delight mobile users so we can improve engagement and search-engine ranking variables and also benefit from enhanced SEO. Better for users. Better for search engines. Win-win.

What Google wants

At this time of year, many SEOs are looking
Forward, and, referring to an SEO best practices article for 2017, Google's Gary Illyes complimented those who

Listed below are three key Stats I have lifted from Google's promotional materials that clearly illustrate the importance of cellular optimization:

Today, more people search on cellular phones than computers.

People are five times more likely to Leave a website if it is not mobile-friendly.

More than half of mobile users will leave a Website if it takes longer than three seconds to load.

Because more people search on mobile than on
Computers, cellular creates more page views. If your site isn't mobile-friendly, users are less likely to stick around. And if your site is slow, they might not even wait for the page to load.

Add from the unreliability of cellular data networks Here and your site has to be a mean, lean mobile-friendly machine, or you may not even get a shot at that client.

The mobile-first index

The complete nail in the coffin for a Desktop-first approach to sites and search is the mobile-first index. Adopting this philosophy makes sense as more searches happen on mobile compared to desktop. Yet, at the moment, ranking is still primarily based on the desktop version of a site.

When this happens, the content and links of your Mobile website, along with any other variables -- rate, user experience and so on -- are the key drivers of your search engine visibility. Desktop will likely still be a factor, but it will be in a secondary capacity. Mobile first.

The writing's on the wall here, folks -- mobile Has been significant for a good while now, but 2017 is the year that it will become the key factor in your quest for improved positions and conversion rates from website visitors.

The good news is that this represents a Opportunity For those who really put in the work to develop an advantage over their competition. It will take work, but climbing over this barrier is the way forward, and doing this before your rivals will place your website in better stead.

Mobile-friendly approach

Our first focus in gaining this advantage is to Look at just how we deliver mobile-friendly content. There are three possible approaches::

Responsive web design

Dynamic content

Separate URLs (mobile website )

Responsive website design is Google's recommended Way to tackle mobile-friendly websites and, as such, is the approach you should take unless you have very strong reasons not to.

Reactive design has been around for a while, so This isn't a new idea. However, we still see sites which are technically responsive while not providing a strong experience for mobile users.

Finally, responsive design is Only a small Part of producing truly mobile-friendly sites.

Mobile optimization

Google has a number of tools for testing for mobile usability and, beyond that, Search Console has
A mobile usability report that details problems on a page-by-page level.

You should use these tools while developing Your new site and use Search Console to keep tabs on issues throughout the life of the website.

Search Console looks at the next mobile usability issues:

Flash usage -- Most Mobile browsers do not render Flash and, as such, you will want to use more modern technologies.

Viewport not configured --
The viewport metatag helps browsers in scaling a page to suit a specific device.

Fixed-width viewport -- This
Difficulty attempts to circumvent mobile design with fixed width pages and is best shelved when a responsive design is adopted.

Content not sized to viewport -- Here the page content does not match the window, and a User must scroll. This can be fixed with relative rather than fixed widths.

Small font size -- This
Is a scaling issue and requires users to pinch the screen to zoom in.

Touch elements too close -- This is a frequent usability issue where it's too hard to tap a given element without also hitting the neighboring element.

Interstitial usage -- A
Full-screen pop-up frequently represents poor user experience on a mobile device and is something that Google is looking to crack down on in 2017.

These are the key technical elements that Google
Is searching for and reporting on to webmasters.

Optimizing your site to remove these issues may Have positive effects on how the usability of your website is rated by Google and certainly has positive consequences for users. Again, win-win.

Mobile optimization resources:

Mobile-Friendly Websites -- https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/

Mobile-Friendly Test -- https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly

Mobile Usability Report -- https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6101188?hl=en

Page speed

Page rate is significant on all devices, but it Can be critically important on mobile when users are out and about searching for quick answers. A page which may load relatively quickly on a WiFi network may not be quite so snappy on a cellular data network. 4G has delivered some great speed improvements, but coverage (in the UK, at least) is not something that can be relied upon.

There are, however, a range of best practices for Improving page speed and, once again, Google has come to our aid with the PageSpeed insights tool. This enables us to readily assess how quickly our pages load and get some pointers on what we can do to improve.

Page speed insights is now built into the Mobile-Friendly test:

https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly

https://testmysite.withgoogle.com/ -- the more
attractive front end

To show how this works, I'll share Details below for a small local B2C business named Vinyl to Digital, which consented for me to use them as a case study.

Here's the output from Google's testmysite.withgoogle.com tool:

We Can see some obvious recommendations for technical improvements here:

Eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and
CSS in above-the-fold content.

Enable compression.

Optimize images.

Minify CSS.

Leverage browser caching.

This is a WordPress site and, as such, most of
These are fairly simple tasks. There exist plugins which will tackle the majority of this with no costly development time.

We could also see an overview of page loading times Within Google Analytics in the Behavior > Website Speed report.

Here We can observe that average page load is almost four seconds, which is above the perfect two- to three-second loading time. We can also see that nearly half of that is attributed to the average server response time.

Making the basic improvements from the PageSpeed Insights instrument and finding a faster hosting partner could probably get the loading time down to around two seconds.

The main takeaway here is that you can get
Accurate metrics on loading time and clear insights on which you can do to improve things. You'll have to customize this to your own CMS or strategy, but you can often get 80 percent of the results with just 20 percent of the campaign.

We also can't talk about mobile page speed without considering Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). AMP was designed to enable the often slow, clunky and annoying mobile internet to load instantly anywhere.

Be fast. It makes your users and search engines happy.

Page speed resources:

Mobile-Friendly Evaluation -- https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly

Website Evaluation -- https://testmysite.withgoogle.com/

Google Analytics -- https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1205784?hl=en

Make the Internet Faster -- https://developers.google.com/speed/

AMP Pages -- https://www.ampproject.org/