Today, most users visit websites using their cellular devices. If your website is not smartphone-friendly, users will more than likely leave it. Search engines like Google also favor sites that are friendly to smartphones. Having a mobile-friendly website, which can be viewed easily using the mobile-friendly test, is therefore imperative to your site’s ranking and users in general.
A mobile-friendly test is a test to determine if your site operates well on tablets and phones. Passing this test makes your site appear better in search results and provides visitors with a better experience. It may also make your organization expand by making users satisfied.
What is a Mobile-Friendly Test?
A mobile-friendly test is done to check the loading speed of a website on mobile devices. It makes sure that the website is friendly to users, enabling them to read text, tap buttons, and view everything without any problems.
The test makes sure that the website has correct viewport settings, enough text size, and buttons are big enough for comfortable taps. It also verifies whether the text is big enough for users to scroll horizontally. Loading speed is also a key to making a website mobile-friendly since slow websites tend to infuriate users and lead to user dropout.
Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test, SE Ranking, and Lighthouse are suggested for mobile-friendliness testing. These tools offer reports of how the website performs, pointing out areas of improvement and providing solutions to improve them.
Why Mobile Friendliness Matters?
Mobile friendliness is very much needed for the success of a website. Search engines prefer mobile-friendly sites for improved results. This implies that more users can see the website, and mobile friendliness drives the traffic. A friendly website provides easy access, where people can tap buttons, read text, and navigate easily, leading to an improved User Experience (UX) and higher engagement.
Essential Criteria for Passing a Mobile-Friendly Test
The following are the key parameters to pass a mobile-friendly test:
- Correct Viewport Settings: The site must have proper viewport settings, which are achieved by including a meta viewport tag in its code. This tag instructs browsers to scale and display the page on different screen sizes, ensuring the site is suitable for various screen sizes.
- Readable Text and Font Size: To ensure user satisfaction, it is important to have text that is large enough to view without zooming. It is important to have a minimum of 16 pixels and make all headings, paragraphs, and buttons readable on small screens.
- Tap Target Size and Spacing: Links and buttons, and other tap targets, must be large and well-spaced. Tap targets must be at least 48 pixels wide and high. This will provide enough room for users to click on the right button even when they have fat fingers.
- Content Fits the Screen: All of your content must be within screen height. Your users should not have to scroll horizontally in order to view information. Sideways scrolling is a bad sign that your site is not mobile-friendly and will make you fail the test.
- Quick Load Times: Your site should be fast to load on phones. Use compressed images, minified files, and fewer scripts to load quickly. Slow sites may get users to abandon before the page has even loaded.
- Avoid Using Unsupported Technologies: Avoid using older technologies like Flash. Flash is unsupported on most phones, so your site won’t be seen. Use newer web tech like HTML5 and CSS3 instead.
Step-by-Step Guide to Pass a Mobile-Friendly Test
Here is the step-by-step guide to pass a mobile-friendly test:
Step 1: Use Responsive Web Design
Start by making your site responsive. By using responsive web design, your site structure changes based on any screen size, from small phones to large tablets. It is achievable compared to developing individual mobile and desktop sites. Use flexible grids and layouts so that content will automatically adjust.
Step 2: Set the Viewport Meta Tag
Add a viewport meta tag to the code on your website. This will tell browsers to size and display your page differently on different screens.
Step 3: Add Larger Fonts
Make sure that all the text is large enough to be legible on a small screen. Use at least 16 pixels for body text. Headlines must be even larger. Avoid using too thin or elaborate fonts, as these are hard to read on a phone.
Step 4: Make Buttons and Links Easy to Tap
Buttons, links, and other tap targets should be large enough to be finger-tappable. Set each tap target a minimum of 48 pixels wide and tall. Position them far enough apart so users will not accidentally tap the wrong one. This is for the good of all, including individuals who have larger hands.
Step 5: Optimize Images and Files
Compress images and minify scripts to get your site to load faster. Big images and big files will slow down your site and get users bouncing before the page has even finished loading. Utilize newer formats like WebP for images and keep small file sizes.
Step 6: Test on Multiple Devices and Browsers
Test your website on all different phones, tablets, and browsers. Test on real devices and also in emulators to see how your site looks and performs everywhere. Monitor Android and iOS devices, along with well-known browsers like Chrome and Safari.
Step 7: Get Rid of Layout Issues and Horizontal Scrolling
Everything has to be within the screen width. If you find that it’s scrolling to the sides, you will have to fix your layout, padding, or images. Make sure nothing gets cut off and is all scrollable without scrolling to the sides.
Step 8: Remove Unsupported Elements
Avoid using features like Flash or outdated plugins because they are not supported by most mobile phones. Use emerging web technologies like HTML5 and CSS3 for animation, video, and interactive content.
Step 9: Recheck and Do It Again
After making modifications, retest your website. Use online testing tools and real devices to find new problems. Keep on optimizing your website as devices and browsers continue to change.
Open Source and Popular Tools for Testing Mobile Friendliness
The following are popular and open-source tools that enable you to detect and resolve mobile issues before they are user-visible.
- Lighthouse: It’s an advanced open-source tool built into Chrome DevTools. It checks your website for mobile usability, performance, accessibility, and search engine optimization.
When you run Lighthouse, it gives you a detailed report with scores and suggestions. It takes into account loading time, tap target size, font size, and whether your content is screen-size.
Lighthouse also identifies issues that affect user experience and Core Web Vitals, so it’s an ultra handy tool for developers and site owners.
- SE Mobile Test Ranking: It is another extremely popular tool to test mobile-friendliness. It tests for important aspects such as viewport settings, text sizes, tap targets, and whether all content fits within the screen width.
SE Ranking also checks your website’s mobile performance score and offers simple suggestions, for example, enlarge font or correct button space. The tool’s Website Audit feature provides automatic scans as often as you need them, informing you about your website’s mobile optimisation.
You can also utilize browser development tools to simulate mobile views. Chrome DevTools lets you resize the screen and see how your site responds to different devices. This comes in handy when you do quick checks and find layout issues.
Testing on real phones and tablets by hand is also a requirement. This makes you see exactly what your users see and allows you to find issues that tools do not.
After testing, carefully examine the reports. Solve the most essential issues first, such as extremely small text or slow loading speeds. Keep on testing until your site meets all tests and delivers users a fluid mobile experience.
Best Practices for Maintaining Mobile Friendliness
The following are the best practices for maintaining mobile friendliness and passing the mobile-friendly tests;
- Regular Testing and Updates: Test your site regularly, especially after making any design or content updates. Testing regularly allows you to identify new problems early on before they affect users. Test on actual devices as well as emulators to see how your site looks and works on different screens.
- Simple and Touch-Friendly Navigation: Make navigation on your site simple and easy to use on touch screens. Use big buttons and easy menus that are easy to tap. Have links and buttons far enough apart so that users aren’t confused into tapping on the wrong thing.
- Optimize for Speed: Work to get your site to load fast by compressing images and minifying scripts. Keep your code organized and use tools that can test your site’s speed. Fast loading makes users happy and has your site on the top pages in search engines.
- Responsive Layouts and Media Queries: Use media queries and adaptable layouts so that your site looks great on any device. Responsive web design lets your material expand with the new phones and tablets that come out. This makes it easy to use your site with advancing technology.
Common Mistakes to Avoid for a Mobile-Friendly Website
The following are the common mistakes to avoid for a mobile-friendly website;
- Forgetting Viewport Settings: The most important mistake is forgetting viewport settings. Without the correct meta viewport tag, your site will not be able to fit or display properly on mobile phones.
- Using Small Fonts and Small Tap Targets: Small fonts and small buttons make your website hard to read and touch on phones. Make sure text is readable and buttons are big enough to tap easily.
- Overloading Pages with Large Files: Large images and huge scripts make your website load slowly. Slow loading frustrates customers and causes them to leave the website before the page loads.
- Don’t Rely Exclusively on Shrinking Desktop Design: Just minimizing your desktop site is not enough. Your site should actually be mobile-friendly, with small-screen layouts and features.
- Not Testing on Real Devices: Testing just on a computer or emulator misses real issues. Always test your website on actual mobile devices so that your website works perfectly for all users.
Cloud Testing for Mobile-Friendly Testing
Cloud testing platforms make it easy for you to test for mobile friendliness by enabling you to test your website on many real devices and browsers without the physical requirement of owning them. Selenium testing enables you to test different phones, tablets, and OSs from your computer so that your site works everywhere.
LambdaTest is one of the leading cloud testing platforms that specializes in Selenium mobile testing. It is an AI-native test execution platform that allows you to run manual and automated tests at scale across 3000+ browsers and OS combinations.
This platform lets you automate your Selenium mobile testing on real iOS and Android devices in the cloud and visually test how your site performs on mobile users.
With LambdaTest, you are able to execute mobile-friendly testing on thousands of device and browser combinations, and it is easy to identify and correct mobile issues before users are affected.
LambdaTest offers parallel testing, real-time analytics, and smooth integration with the most favored development tools, all aimed at speeding up mobile testing and making it more reliable. These capabilities help teams save time, their testing potential grows, and every release is mobile-compatible.
With LambdaTest, you can efficiently find and resolve usability issues so that your mobile-friendly test goes smoothly and you can provide an uninterrupted experience to all users.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a mobile-friendly test is important to the success of your site. Apply the steps in this article to make your site accessible on any device. Test and adapt your site as technology advances. Utilize the right tools and best practices to make your users’ mobile experience seamless.
