No matter what your website is about, mobile rankings are essential for it. And if you experience a decline in the score, you'll undoubtedly want to know what you can do to fix it. Simply telling you that you should improve your mobile experience will get you nowhere. So, in this article, we will explore the 7 reasons your website is not working on mobile.
Smartphones are where more than 50% of all web traffic comes from. Therefore, mobile optimization should on top of the priority list of any brand out there. Most users start their searches on mobile phones and take them to a computer only if they like what they see. So, you need to know how to optimize your WordPress site for mobile. The things we'll cover here will teach you what mistakes you should avoid.
On the other hand, if you're experiencing a drop in mobile rankings, these are the things you should focus on. Chances are, you'll find your problem among them.
1. Your website isn't mobile responsive
We'll start with the most obvious reason. For your site to work on a mobile device, it needs to be mobile responsive. It should proportionally resize for different screen sizes. And if it fails to do so, using it can be a nightmare. However, there are challenges in the way of getting there.
Often, brands design layouts, create content for desktops and try to resize it on smaller screens. But that's a mistake because your mobile experience won't be intuitive. Instead, make your layouts and content with all types of devices in mind. You have to think about the limitations and find a way to work around them.
This way, you'll be able to make much better design choices, and you'll end up with a website that works well across all platforms.
2. Your optimization of mobile-first indexing isn't done
Some brands didn't like the idea of responsive design. So, they took a different route and developed separate sites for mobile devices. But because the majority of searches happens on mobile, Google is changing the way it indexes pages. Mobile-first indexing means that Google will show the mobile version of your site by default.
Your website needs to work well on any device, and selecting this way of indexing is the easiest way to adjust it for mobile users. Of course, this rule won't apply to searches from desktops. They'll still see their version of the site.
3. Your site loads slowly on mobile
Loading time kills conversion rates, and we all know that. But despite that, most sites fail to deliver the expected performance. According to Google itself, an average web page needs up to 10 seconds to load on a mobile phone. And that's unacceptable for most users, as the recommended time is up to 3 seconds.
Since 2018, mobile loading times have been a ranking factor. However, they also influence other factors like bounce rate and time spent on a page. So, your rank can suffer if things aren't as they should be.
If you want to improve your loading times, there are a few things you should do:
- Compress your images
- Avoid redirects
- Don't use too many different fonts
- Reduce the number of server requests
- Minify your core files
- Utilize caching to help return visitors
4. Your mobile menu is bad
One of the essential things on any site is a menu. With small websites, things are simple. Their menus aren't extensive, and they're easily duplicated for the mobile version of the site. Bigger sites, on the other hand, can be problematic. In fact, a poorly optimized menu can be one of the reasons your website is not working on mobile.
If your menu shows a lot of pages, try to narrow it down. You don't want your users spending too much time scrolling to find what they need. Instead, include only the top-level pages. Also, make your menu collapsible when clicking outside of it, and you're all set.
5. You're using popups
Although popup windows and interstitials aren't popular among desktop users, mobile users seem to hate them a lot. Of course, there's nothing wrong with wanting to promote your brand's app or trying to sign your visitors to a newsletter. However, it would be best if you did it in an unintrusive way.
So, what should you do? The best thing is to avoid popups altogether. But if you want to keep them, some things can reduce the negative impact they have.
- Trigger popups only when users engage with content
- Use exit-intent popups
- Don't use full-screen popups
- Make them easy to close
- Use chatbots or notifications instead of popups.
6. Page content isn't obvious
When you take the responsive design approach, you need to make your website fully responsive. Scaling needs to be spot on for all your pages to make sure your users don't leave the domain because they think there's nothing on a page they clicked on.
So, you might want to consider leaving the logo, menu, or slider out of the picture once a user starts navigating through your site. Also, try to make the page change obvious. Avoid using the same header for all pages and ensure that the main content is visible in the first view of every page.
7. You didn't optimize CTAs for mobile
Your CTAs on mobile should be getting similar results to the ones on the desktop. However, you can't expect them to work well on mobile just because they did on a different device. They need to be visible, surrounded by well-optimized content, and properly placed on the page.
Essentially, all principles of creating a compelling CTA are the same, but things are a bit more challenging because you're working with less space. Therefore, they should be full width, in contrast to other content (so they stand out), and no longer than three words.
The only thing left is to make sure that the buttons are large enough to click on touch screens, and you can eliminate badly optimized CTAs as one of the reasons your website is not working on mobile.
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