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Disclaimer and Legal Notices
The information presented in this report represents the views of the author and/or publisher as of the date of publication. The author and/or publisher reserve the right to alter and update their opinions based on new conditions. This report is for informational purposes only. The author and publisher accept no responsibility for any liabilities resulting from the use of this information.
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Contents
The Importance of a Mobile Friendly Website ... 4
How Searches Have Changed ... 6
Understanding Mobile Users ... 7
The Types of Mobile Layouts ... 8
Responsive Designs ... 8
Dynamic Content ... 8
Mobile URLs ... 9
Making Your Website Responsive ... 10
Keeping Your Current Theme ... 11
Tips for Selecting Your Responsive Theme ... 12
Differences Between a Desktop and Mobile Home Page ... 13
What Mobile Users See ... 13
Don’t Forget About Mobile Apps ... 14
What Does the Future Hold for Mobile Devices? ... 15
Checklist for a Mobile Friendly Website ... 16
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The Importance of a Mobile Friendly Website
As a business owner, you may already know that it is important to run your website so that it is “Google Friendly.” This means keeping up with all the latest developments when it comes to updates and guidelines that Google has in place. Mobile devices have been around for years and it is estimated that over 57% of your website visitors are viewing it on some type of mobile device. The increase of online shopping has also hit mobile and if your shopping cart isn’t mobile friendly you could be losing up to 30% of your potential sales!
As of April 21st 2015, Google is using the “mobile friendliness” of your website as a ranking signal. This is going to apply to all languages around the world. By doing this, Google is aiming to deliver higher quality search results to users on mobile devices.
http://www.SpecializedComputing.com Page 5 Well the simple answer is to ensure that your website is mobile friendly. Not sure? Use the following link to take a look at how Google sees your site:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly
This is the result you want to see:
Also make sure your website actually “looks” right in the viewscreen, too. Just because Googlebot can read your website content, that doesn't mean it’s going to look right to the human beings that are viewing it.
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How Searches Have Changed
One important factor of mobile marketing is to understand how the world of online searching has changed. Especially when it comes to local and offline marketing.
Do you remember years ago when you would enter a search term as follows?
Restaurant + Toronto Dentists in New York
This isn’t necessary any more for mobile devices. As you search online, your mobile device will automatically detect your location and provide you with local search results. You will need to turn on the location services on your device for this to work.
Google’s “Pigeon” update did a major revamp of how local search results were displayed. Automatic local search results have helped both the mobile user and the local business owner.
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Understanding Mobile Users
Before we talk about how to ensure that your website is mobile friendly, you need to understand the habits and thinking of a mobile user. Yes, they are different than someone sitting at home on their desktop computer.
The majority of mobile users say that they often make impulse purchases via their mobile devices, which is why their shopping experience needs to be streamlined. If they get hung up during your checkout process, they may not complete the purchase when they get home to their desktop computer.
Not sure how many of your web visitors are coming from mobile devices? Just check out your stats on your hosting account, which should show the number of users on each different type of operating system, as well as what countries they’re visiting from, and how they were referred to your website.
Mobile users are usually out and about, which means that when they’re looking for something, they need it immediately. This is why your website needs to provide easy-to-find content that loads quickly and is easy to navigate.
It is now estimated that there are over 1 billion mobile users browsing the internet, and these numbers are rising. People are on the internet while sitting on the bus to and from work, while waiting in line at the grocery store checkout, and even while watching TV at night. This means that your website could potentially see an increase in traffic just by being mobile friendly.
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The Types of Mobile Layouts
There are three main types of mobile layouts, and the good news is that Google views them all equally. Let’s take a look at each one.
Responsive Designs
This would be the type of layout that is considered standard for most webmasters today. The benefit to this type of design is that it will automatically detect what type of device is being used. The layout will then adjust the design to fit accordingly.
If you were to view your own responsive website on your home computer and then on your smartphone or tablet, you would easily see how the display changes, although the content stays the same.
A responsive design only requires one design and one URL. It is probably the easiest method for making your website mobile friendly. The biggest disadvantage to this design is that it has the potential to load more slowly, since the original website design was made for larger screens and the smaller screen sizes require a lot of calculations to be performed on-the-fly in order to resize properly.
Even so, it is still the most popular way to make your website mobile friendly.
Dynamic Content
With this type of layout, you still only use one URL for your website. The biggest difference is that you are showing visitors a completely different version of your website when they visit on a mobile device.
http://www.SpecializedComputing.com Page 9 to improve your visitor’s experience, and to minimize mobile load times without sacrificing all the bells and whistles on your full-size website.
Mobile URLs
This type of layout is still worth mentioning, even though it is now considered to be out-of-date and old fashioned. This type of layout means you have to use a separate URL for the mobile version of your site, so you end up with two separate websites that need to be updated and maintained in tandem – a lot of extra work.
When a mobile user loads your site, they automatically get redirected to the correct version (URL) of your website. This redirection must be set up correctly, which is not always that easy to accomplish.
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Making Your Website Responsive
The easiest way to make your current website mobile friendly is by using a responsive theme. If you are using a site builder such as WordPress, then you have lots of choices available.
Here are some top themes that are currently mobile responsive:
1. Thrive Themes – http://www.specializedcomputing.com/thrive-themes
2. Studio Press Themes – http://www.specializedcomputing.com/studiopress
The Specialized Computing website is built on their Genesis framework. 3. Theme Forest – http://www.specializedcomputing.com/themeforest
Theme Forest also has designs for HTML and Joomla based sites.
4. Elegant Themes is another popular choice and they have 21 Wordpress responsive themes available at the moment –
http://www.specializedcomputing.com/elegant-themes
5. If you’re looking for free themes, here’s a list of 30 responsive designs –
http://www.specializedcomputing.com/wpmudev-free
6. Then there are the free responsive themes from the WordPress repository – http://www.specializedcomputing.com/free-wpthemes
If you haven’t updated your Wordpress site lately, which you should get into the habit of doing, you may find that your current theme is now available in a mobile responsive version.
To check for updates, go to Appearance > Themes and see if an update is available. Or look at the top of your Admin Dashboard and you will see a number beside the “Updates Available” area.
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Keeping Your Current Theme
If you find that your current theme is not mobile friendly but you really don’t want to change to a new theme, it is possible to make it mobile friendly with a little help.
The Jetpack plugin for WordPress displays your content in a clean, uncluttered interface, making it easy for mobile visitors to scan your site. The Jetpack mobile theme is extremely lightweight to ensure fast loading times, and does offer some customizable options like custom menus, headers, and backgrounds.
WPTouch is a plugin solution that will help you create a separate, mobile-friendly version of your site. This will not affect your desktop theme, which will stay the same. When visitors view your site from any mobile device, your site will display with a different theme. You can select from various themes that the plugin offers. If you are trying to brand your business though, this may not be the best option.
WP Mobile Detector, this works in a similar way to the WPTouch plugin above. You can select from several different mobile friendly themes or upload your own, and it also has a built-in Interactive Theme Editor, so you can customize it by adding a logo, selecting colors, configuring the menu, adding analytics, and more. Please note that these themes have been designed to be about 4 times as fast as a regular desktop site, so they will load on a mobile device at super-fast speeds. There are additional plugins available as well.
Just do your research and read reviews before using.
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Tips for Selecting Your Responsive Theme
If you’re looking to install a new theme and don’t want to start uploading each new theme and testing – or if you don’t have access to a mobile device that you can use to test out the themes – you can test your website by using Emulation Mode in the Google Chrome web browser.
You can download the Chrome browser at http://www.google.com/chrome/
Then go to Menu > View Developer > Developer Tool
This article explains exactly how to use the Developer Tool:
http://developer.chrome.com/devtools/docs/device-mode
Another way to check if your site is mobile friendly is by checking your page load speed times. This can be done at the following link; a high score is a good indication that your site will load quickly on a mobile device:
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Differences Between a Desktop and Mobile Home Page
When someone accesses your website at home on their desktop computer, they usually have a larger screen. This allows you, as the website owner, to have more content on your home page, including more sales and promotional content.
But mobile users are limited as to how much they can see at any one time. For this reason, you want them to quickly find what they are looking for without having to scroll around and click too much. Keep in mind too that mobile devices all have different screen sizes, further limiting what each user will see.
What Mobile Users See
It is important to understand what mobile users see when they browse the internet. For example, your website will display differently depending on whether they are using an iPhone, Android phone, Windows phone, laptop, tablet, or iPad. The layout of your page will depend upon the resolution and capabilities of each device. So two people with different smartphones could view your content in a different manner.
Phones often display content in one column, whereas an iPad or tablet would display the content in two columns.
Responsive themes are displayed on mobile devices by using a navigation layout that consists of the following main elements:
1. App Bar 2. Tab Bar
3. Navigation Drawer 4. Bottom Drawer
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Don’t Forget About Mobile Apps
One area that you don’t want to get left behind is mobile applications, or “apps” as they are known. Some companies have developed apps for their mobile users which have been designed to replace the user’s need to visit any website. This is for ease of use and for quicker loading and browsing purposes.
It is possible that in the future, websites will only be accessible from a home computer or laptop – whereas mobile devices will deal exclusively with apps.
There are certainly benefits to apps:
1. They are easy to use. All the user has to do is download and install it, then fill in their details to log in or activate it (if necessary), and they are ready to go. If you want to develop your own app, be sure that it is easy for people to install and activate.
2. Apps can be used as add-ons or extensions of your website. Facebook is a great example of this. The contents of their website can be accessed via their mobile app, which looks and functions exactly the same for every user regardless of their location and what device they are using.
3. Apps can save users time. Who isn’t busy these days and constantly on the move? What better way to stay connected than via an app. You are essentially taking your business straight to them, right where they live! 4. Apps allow you to capture data in real time. Businesses can now send
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What Does the Future Hold for Mobile Devices?
One thing you need to remember is that the world of mobile devices is forever changing. Just take a look at the types of wearable technology that are now available.
Fitness trackers Cameras
Portable trackers
Portable monitors and devices Smart watches
You have no doubt seen all the hype surrounding the Apple Watch. Wearable devices are a trend that needs to be heeded. So what does this mean for Google?
Of course, no one can predict what Google will do when they release new algorithms. But one thing does seem to be clear; local searches will become even more localized. Instead of displaying results in a general location, the results could be pinpointed to just a few blocks, instead. As a business with a website, keep all of this in mind. Ensure that your website is responsive and mobile friendly. Make sure your visitors can easily click on links and navigate to other pages. Create pages that are easy to read with links that are clear and visible. And ensure that your shopping cart functions correctly on mobile devices.
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Checklist for a Mobile Friendly Website
Use the following checklist to see how mobile friendly your website is right now, and what areas need improvement.
Load your website on a mobile device and compare it to what you’re seeing on your desktop computer at the same time. Then answer the following questions:
1. How fast/slow did the website load?
2. Can you easily identify what your website is about? 3. How well can the content be read?
4. What’s it like to navigate? 5. Can you find the call to action?
6. How do you rate your experience as a user? 7. Would you return to this site if it weren’t yours? 8. Is it easy to click on links?
9. Is there adequate white space in-between paragraphs?
You need to be really honest here. If your site didn’t perform well, it’s time to concentrate on making it mobile friendly as soon as possible.
With the latest changes from Google, it will really pay to have a mobile friendly website. For one, your rankings could potentially be higher in the search engines, which equals more traffic and new customers.
At the same time, giving your website a makeover will benefit your business by making navigating your site more pleasant. If people find what they need and like what they see, they will bookmark your site and return more often.
With the popularity of social media, users will also Share, Like and Tweet your content, providing you with more exposure.
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