If you’re under the impression that a good-looking website is all you need to engage visitors, you’re mistaken! With an increasing number of your potential customers using mobiles rather than desktops to browse, you need to craft a site that works best not just on a desktop screen but on other devices as well. In other words, what you need is a website that acts like a chameleon and adapts quickly and smoothly to different types of screens and devices. Which is why, website optimization is also about optimal web design. Web designing has evolved to include more than just appealing visual elements. It encompasses a complete range of components that work together to make your website stand out amidst all others- one of the most significant among them being their adaptability to all devices. Let’s find out how you can help your website succeed in this respect.
Website Optimization for All Devices
How can you optimize your website and make it adaptable to desktops, smartphones and tablets? This calls for several website design and development considerations:
- A mobile-friendly, responsive design is your strength. Have you noticed how when you open some websites on your mobile phone you see the layout designed for the desktop? This can be a major problem, because if your website is not mobile-friendly it may never make its place on page 1 of the search results. So, use a responsive framework that can help your website adapt to different screen sizes. Most website builders offer a variety of responsive templates that are already designed to adapt to different devices. Similarly, use a grid system that makes your website flexible. Fluid grids make your website much more easily adaptable to any screen size.
- Your website’s appearance on mobile devices is crucial. Make sure the size of the text and other visual elements of your website adjust themselves seamlessly based on the device. How? Media Queries and the Viewport meta tag can work magic. Viewports help browsers adapt the dimensions of your webpage to its screen. Adding a viewport to your website’s HTML can make it flexible and suitable for all devices.
- Images can make or break your website. Images have to be responsive too. A responsive image is one that can shrink or grow to fit the screen size of the device in use. By using the max-width property you can get the images to automatically adapt themselves to the screen size of the visitor’s device.
- Your website’s loading time matters the most. It’s a key determinant of whether your visitors stay or leave. Mobile users are looking for quick solutions to their needs. If your website doesn’t load quickly enough on a mobile, your potential customer is likely to move on to another site that loads faster than yours. Research shows that an average mobile user leaves a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. So cut down on unnecessary scripts and large images to make sure your site achieves optimum loading speed.
- User experience can never be compromised. Website design involves more than just the visual and aesthetic elements. Whichever device your potential customer chooses to visit you from, there can be no compromise. Their experience on your website should be seamless, irrespective of the device. Apart from your website’s loading speed, there are other elements that can enhance user experience- how easily are they able to navigate your website from a mobile? Is it easy to find what they’re looking for? These are some of the questions you need to answer with respect to website optimization for all devices.
Besides these important considerations, also check for browser compatibility across devices. Finally, never forget that whatever the device used, the content of your website will continue to be king. So keep the content engaging and valuable for your visitors. And most importantly, test your website on all devices and improve as and when necessary. Website optimization is not a one-time process. You need to stay abreast with the changing needs of users and continue to give them what they’re looking for.