Mobile internet browsing is growing. People don’t leave their homes without their cellphone.
Every argument ends with “Just Google it!”
And they really will whip out their phones to Google it. Just to prove a point.
What’s the point I’m trying to make?
You need a mobile-friendly website.
I’m talking about responsive web design.
Basically responsive web design is an approach aimed at creating sites to provide optimal viewing experience across a wide range of devices (whether desktop or mobile devices). It means easy reading and navigation without needing to re-size, pan and scroll more than necessary.
Most sites these days would either split their site into two versions, a desktop/PC version and a mobile version. Or, they design their site to be friendly to both PC users and mobile users.
More and more sites are aiming for the latter.
As Mashable’s Pete Cashmore says, “The benefits are obvious: you build a website once, and it works seamlessly across thousands of different screens.”
If you can’t afford to have a web designer create this for you, then here are 5 ways you can get a responsive site:
1. Use categories
Different categories for different things.
Organize your content into different categories so that visitors can easily find what they’re looking for, without having to go through your entire website.
For example, if you have a website about music, maybe your categories would be “Pop”, “Rock”, “Metal”, “Oldies” and so on.
2. Use separate pages
If someone is browsing your website on a phone, they won’t appreciate super long paragraphs and pages that cause them to have to keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling just to reach the bottom.
Don’t try to stuff everything on one page. Separate things, so that the people browsing your website just have to click on the “Next page” button.
This will also help you make your paragraphs shorter and your website will look neater and more user-friendly.
People will also be more willing to read your content, instead of being turned off by a wall of text.
3. Flexible elements
You won’t be able to anticipate which screen size to use. There are way too many out there for you to be able to pinpoint exactly which type of mobile device your visitors will be using.
So all the elements of your website pages, like images, videos, and site layout, have to be flexible.
For example, when viewing an image on a desktop, it’s fine if it’s big, but if someone is viewing the same image on a mobile device, make sure they don’t have to scroll all over the place just to see the full image.
4. Design for touch screens
Take into consideration the fact that most people nowadays use devices with touch screens.
So you need to make sure your mobile site design accommodates for that. Your buttons and links need to be easy to tap, but not so easy that people might accidentally tap them while scrolling up or down on the page.
Don’t make your links too small, and keep them further apart. Take into account the fact that some people have big thumbs.
5. Show only what is necessary
One of the challenges of designing your site to be user-friendly for a smaller screen is that you cannot put too much content in.
Otherwise your site might look messy and cumbersome.
One way to get around this is to give your visitors the ability to hide or show content as necessary.
For example, you could add a “Hide/Show Content” button, or a “More info” button, so that there would be less text on the screen.
