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10 Best Mobile Friendliness Tests [+ What Does it Mean to be Mobile Friendly?]

Mobile Optimization
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10 Best Mobile Friendliness Tests Nobody wants to sit there pinching, poking, and squinting at their phone just to view your website. So it should come as no shock that 50% of people will use a business less often if their site isn’t mobile friendly, according to Google. But how can you be sure that your website is mobile friendly? Sure, you could check it on your own smartphone. But what about the hundreds of other kinds of phones and tablets that your visitors are using? Today we’ll cover a selection of mobile friendliness tests that will give you clear answers and actionable tips. For each test, we’ll put our own site through the wringer, so you can make an apples-to-apples comparison of the results. Then we’ll take a look at what it means to be mobile friendly and how it can impact your SEO. But first… what even is a mobile friendliness test? What is a mobile friendly test? 10 Best Mobile-Friendliness Tests What does it mean to be mobile friendly? Does mobile friendliness affect SEO? Is responsive the same thing as mobile friendly? A good mobile friendliness test will look at a wide range of factors. These include technical factors such as: Site speed CSS and Javascript use Plugins like Flash or Java They’ll also include usability factors like: Is the text readable without zooming? Does the content fit...

Beyond Responsive Design: How to Optimize Your Website for Mobile Users

Mobile Optimization
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Beyond Responsive Design: How to Optimize Your Website for Mobile Users Everyone can acknowledge the importance of a mobile-friendly website, especially after Google's Mobilegeddon algorithm update. Mobile optimization is here to stay, and it's demanding more and more of businesses and their websites. But mobile optimization is about more than just a responsive website design. In this article, we tell you why and how to adopt a mobile-first mindset for your website. Google's mobile-friendly algorithm change in 2015 (and a few more since then) was evidence that the search engine recognizes its responsibility to surface websites that painlessly get users what they need at the time that they need it. Google doesn't want to send mobile users to websites that provide a frustrating browsing experience — that would damage its promise to its users to always deliver helpful, relevant content. Moreover, this algorithm change was and is a signal of a much larger shift that’s afoot — consumer behavior is changing, and it's your job to adapt. Building a mobile-friendly website is step one, but tweaking your website will not keep you ahead of consumers’ changing behavior and expectations. In short, you have to infuse your marketing strategy with a mobile-first mindset. Here's how. 1. Map your customer journey. Imagine the experience of Sally, a young marketer who has just moved to Chicago. While out for a walk, Sally passes by a hair salon and realizes she needs a haircut. She pulls out her phone a...