Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank
Mobile technology has come a long way since the early 2000s. Now, hand-held units are the primary method of web-browsing for more than half of the people on the Internet. This means you must optimize for a mobile-friendly blog if you want to succeed.
Keep in mind that some statistics around Internet browsing are more general. For example, some sites like my health and fitness blog will see a 70% mobile-user rate while my gaming blog only has 30%. This means some sites are more likely to show on smartphones than others.
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With that being said, optimizing a mobile-friendly blog still engages those smartphone and tablet users while improving performance for desktop and laptop visitors. It’s in your best interest to put effort into fine-tuning the site.
Why Optimize for Mobile Devices?
At the time of this article, more than 55% of visitors to websites come from mobile devices. This includes both smartphones and tablets. It also means more than half of visitors are expecting an easy-to-use interface with their thumbs.
Also consider how about 53% of mobile users will abandon a site that takes longer than a few seconds to load up.
Without optimization, you could lose more than one-quarter of your target audience before they have a chance to see your content.
Now, a 25% loss in traffic may not sound like a lot. That is, unless you examine it from the entire perspective. If you’re website generates about $1,000 per month, it’s realistic to assume you’ll increase revenue by hundreds of dollars simply by making the site easier to use on mobile devices.
Of course, this also assumes you don’t have a mobile-friendly blog to begin with.
Most of Your Traffic May Be from Mobile
As I mentioned earlier, statistics like the ones I mentioned above are based on averages. Some industries are more likely to scroll across a smartphone than others.
If you’re curious, there are a number of ways you can find out which side of the spectrum your blog is being viewed. Personally, I use tools like Google Analytics and heatmaps. These tools show you who is viewing what in certain screen sizes.
Easier to Read from Hand-held Units
People on the move want to find what they’re looking for right now. A mobile-friendly blog is geared towards making finding and absorbing that material easier. You don’t want people to get lost among a wall of text.
You also don’t want to flood someone’s view with a bunch of ads or images. Even a site that looks good on a desktop can still look cluttered on a hand-held device. If your page is not mobile friendly, you’ll lose visitors and possibly fans.
User Bandwidth and Processing Power
Not everyone has the latest and greatest mobile technology. And certainly not everyone shares a super-fast connection. A mobile-friendly blog is one that is easy for lesser devices to process information over the worst of networks.
Luckily, content delivery networks assist in streamlining some of this issue. However, you shouldn’t rely completely on a CDN for optimizing speed. Remember, you only have a three-second window to deal with.
Google Puts Priority on Mobile Friendliness
Perhaps the most important aspect to optimizing a mobile-friendly blog is Google. The search engine giant has been pushing for mobile-friendliness since 2015. If you don’t have an optimized site, you’ll appear lower in search results.
This is due to a big push from Google to deliver quality content. And being able to handle smartphones and tablets efficiently is part of that “quality.”
How Do You Optimize a Mobile-Friendly Blog?
Optimization is a bit tricky, especially if you’re new to website development. Not everyone has the money to pay an SEO specialist to make adjustments…and some issues may simply be out of your control.
However, there are a few things you can do right now that will directly impact your site’s performance for visitors as well as search engines.
Shorter Sentences and Paragraphs
A wall of text is when you create an ultra-long paragraph that has no seeming breaks within the content. It’s simply line after line of words. This makes for bad viewing and makes it easier for readers to get lost.
Smartphones and most tablets don’t have the wide-screen viewable limit that desktops and laptops enjoy. Which means you need to make sure your words are appearing well on smaller displays.
Correctly Sized Images
Image optimization is one element a lot of people forget about. It’s easy to snap a picture from your phone and slap it up on the blog for all to see. Unfortunately, a lot of these images are insanely large files depending on the resolution of your camera.
Even if you use coding to shrink and image down, the entire graphic is often rendered. This means people visiting the site are still downloading that pic in its entirety.
Personally, I use Photoshop to correctly size the images I use on my blogs. In most cases, it decreases the file size by as much as 75%. It makes a big difference in performance if you use a lot of images on your blog posts.
Fewer JavaScript Calls in Code
JavaScript is used everywhere on the Internet. This is especially a pain in the rear if you use systems like AdSense to generate revenue and WordPress to operate the site.
A mobile-friendly blog has a reduced number of JavaScript calls because these reduce the speed of a website. Unfortunately, you may be limited to what you can do to modify JavaScript depending on the elements you have on your site.
I suggest using something like Pingdom Tools to find what JavaScript elements are slowing your content. You’ll be able to make some changes, but the majority of them may rely on plugins, widgets and advertisements you don’t want to give up.
Making the Page About Content
Most of us creating blogs do so for ad revenue and affiliate sales. However, filling the content with these elements takes away from the user experience.
If your site looks like an ad section in a newspaper, it’s too much.
It’s all about what the site looks like from a hand-held unit. If it’s too cluttered, remove some things. Not only does this make the site more appealing to those on smartphones, but it will also impact site speed performance.
Consider Minimalism
Using a minimalist web design is often the solution for many bloggers. It vastly improves speed, makes it easier to read content and generally has a more clean appearance.
Unfortunately, this may also mean you’ll lose some of the nuances that make your site unique.
You might have to make certain sacrifices on widgets and extras if you really want to score will in terms of performance.
Frequent Testing
Always conduct regular testing when building a mobile-friendly blog. It’s easy to simulate what your site would look like on a smaller screen by modifying your browser window. But what about on a real smartphone?
Also bear in mind you’ll have a different personal experience browsing your site than a new visitor. This is because your computer will already have files downloaded into its cache, making the site appear faster than it actually is.
Never underestimate the value of good data. Keep your thumb on the pulse of your blog by monitoring tools such as Analytics or Pingdom. It can make the difference between keeping a visitor engaged or turning them away to the competition.
Engage All of Your Audience
When you create a mobile-friendly blog, you’re actually improving the experience for everyone. If it’s fast on a smartphone, imagine how it performs for a fast desktop computer using gigabit Internet. Just because the site looks good on a 23-inch widescreen doesn’t mean it will appear well on a 5.7-inch smartphone display.
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