As a business owner you pride yourself in responding to your customer’s needs, but does your website reflect this responsiveness? A recent survey suggests that over 51% of the time an average adult spends on the Internet is done from a mobile device. This means a good portion of your visitors are viewing your website from a mobile device.
This mobile use phenomenon is not restricted to the younger generation. No matter what your business provides, you can be assured your website will be accessed nearly half the time on mobile devices. Older adults use iPads and iPhones to view websites and younger adults utilize a variety of smartphones and tablets. In our fast-paced world, professionals, parents, or students often complete Internet activities while away from their desks, waiting for a meeting or class to start, or sitting in a waiting room or at a child’s basketball practice.
No excuses! Your website needs to respond to your viewers no matter their device.
Let’s look at 3 quick tests you can do to determine if your website is responsive. First what’s it mean for a website to be responsive? Responsive websites react to their environment and automatically provide an optimal viewing experience for your visitor. A responsive website displays the content in a friendly way based on the size of the screen the visitor is using. Menus, images, and content reorganize themselves to give the user the optimal viewing experience.
3 Quick Responsive Website Tests
Look for a few different devices for your test. Consider trying an Android phone, iPhone, iPad, and a small laptop. If you only have a mobile phone, that’s a great place to start. Navigate to your website and review these 3 main factors on each page of your website:
Responsive websites load in less than 3 seconds.
Does your website load quickly or are you saying, “Come on already!” to yourself? You have less than 3 seconds to grab the attention of a mobile user. If your website takes longer than 3 seconds to load, you’re not being very responsive. For an automated test of your website speed you can try out one of the following tools: Google PageSpeed, GTMetrix, or Pingdom
Responsive websites are easy to digest on all screen sizes.
If you view your website on a mobile device and it appears very tiny and zoomed out, it’s not responsive. If you need to zoom and pan around the site to view the content, it’s not responsive. If you rotate your device from portrait to landscape and back and your website freezes in the transition or looks disproportionate, it’s not responsive.
Responsive websites have menus that are easily viewable and can be clicked with a normal sized finger.
If your users have to zoom in to read or click your menus, it’s not responsive. If a normal finger tap does not navigate the menu, it’s not responsive.
Nothing beats some real world testing of your website to learn if it’s meeting your expectations for responding to your customers. For an automated mobile-friendly test you can check out Google Mobile Friendly Test Site.
If your website is not responding to your mobile customers it might be time to consider updating the website to ensure your business’ online presence serves and attracts customers.