In order to compete in any industry online, it is absolutely necessary to have a mobile friendly website. According to a Stone Temple study in 2018, 58 percent of all website visits occurred on mobile devices, meaning that companies must ensure their websites are mobile friendly in order to improve or at least maintain their organic search rankings.
In 2015, Google released an algorithm update that improved search rankings for mobile friendly sites and penalized websites that were not mobile responsive. Since 2015, companies that did not have a mobile compatible website saw an over 50 percent decrease in traffic according to a Blue Corona study.
Below are 3 tools you can use to perform a mobile friendly website test.
1.Google’s Mobile Friendly Test Tool
Google created a mobile friendly test tool that allows you to test if your website is mobile friendly or not. All you have to do is plug in your website into this tool, and it will tell you if your website is mobile friendly. If your website is mobile friendly, then it will appear with a green message that says, “Page is mobile friendly.” If the page is not mobile friendly, it will appear with a red message that says, “Page is not mobile friendly.” If your website is not mobile friendly according to Google, your website will likely be penalized in mobile search results.
This tool tells you how Google views the mobile website, so it should be the first resource to use when you are building a mobile website. This tool will also highlight any issues your website has in loading the mobile website, providing specific areas where you can improve your mobile website.
2. Test It Yourself in a Browser
If you are building a new website and want it to be mobile friendly, make sure you choose or create a mobile friendly website theme. This do-it-yourself mobile website test is the easiest and fastest way to see if your website is mobile friendly.
If you want to perform a quick test yourself when creating a mobile friendly website, open your website in a browser on the desktop and drag the right side of the window to your left until it stops. This should give you the view of what your mobile website will look like to users searching for your website on mobile devices.
3. Mobile Page Speed Test by Google
Google also has a handy tool to test your mobile page load speed. When you create a mobile website, you can test the load speed on mobile devices through this Google tool. If your page load speed is over 2.5 seconds, the tool will tell you that your page load speed is slow, which could increase your bounce rate and cause users to leave your website. This mobile friendly test can provide pointers for improving your page load speed through a customized report.
This tool allows you to benchmark your website speed performance against competitors, providing invaluable data to help you beat out competitors in your market. You can also review specific pages for custom fixes that would improve mobile page load speeds.
As you are attempting to create a mobile friendly website, these 3 tools will help ensure that your website is mobile friendly for users and for Google.
Dan Vera