<span style="font-weight: 400;">When you've got a burning question, are you more likely to reach for your tablet or smartphone to look up the answer or to wait until you're near a desktop? If you're like most people, you're going to turn to your mobile device to find the info you need, like the score of the big game or the name of the actor in that movie.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">More people today are using mobile devices than ever. At last count, </span><a href="https://datareportal.com/global-digital-overview#" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">some 5.4 billion people</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> had a smartphone or other mobile device. If your brand wants to meet your audience where it's at, you need to make sure your website works on a mobile device. To do that, you need to take a mobile-friendly approach to website design.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">But can't we direct people to download our app? You might be wondering. In short, no. Even if your brand has an app, you still need to meet people where they are: In the web browsers on their phones. Building a mobile-friendly website has benefits that go beyond making your visitors happy. And it's worth the effort.</span>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">What's a Mobile-Friendly Website?</span></h2>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Smartphones and tablets have tiny screens compared to laptops and desktop computers. If you load a website designed for a desktop on a smartphone, it's going to be hard to read any text, look at images, or navigate from page to page. That creates a frustrating experience for the user.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">A mobile-friendly website is designed to fit on a mobile-sized screen and function well. Users won't have to pinch their screens or squint to read the site. Several terms fall under the mobile-friendly umbrella, including responsive design, adaptive design, and mobile-optimized. While those terms often get used interchangeably, there are some key differences between them.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Responsive Design</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">As you may guess from the name, responsive design responds to the environment and the user's behavior. When you create a responsive website, it adjusts itself based on the size of the user's screen. The adjustments happen automatically. With responsive websites, users can enjoy a stand-out browsing experience whether they're looking at your site on a 24" monitor or a 5" smartphone screen.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">You can test how a responsive website will look on a mobile screen by resizing the browser window on a desktop. As you shrink the browser, the website will react. It'll move columns and tables. The site will function as well, no matter how large or small the window is.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Adaptive Design</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Adaptive design is a bit less fluid than responsive design. While a website with a responsive design will adjust every element based on the device, the adaptive design uses layouts that are more fixed. One way to think of adaptive design is as a website with several different sizes of the same general design. When you design an adaptive website, you create multiple versions for each potential device.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mobile-Optimized</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">A mobile-optimized website is one that's been designed with the needs of mobile users first. It'll work fine on a desktop, but the designers were really focused on how the site would look on a smartphone or tablet when they created it. Mobile-optimized sites usually feature simple navigation, plenty of white space, and a single-column layout.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Whether you go with a responsive, adaptive, or mobile-optimized site, you'll make it much easier for your users to learn about your brand. You'll also be improving your search rankings and overall reputation.</span>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">Why Should Your Site Be Mobile-Friendly?</span></h2>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">There are several reasons to focus on building a mobile-friendly website. A responsive or mobile-optimized site improves your company's reputation, functions better, and keeps your visitors happy.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">1. Better User Experience</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">It's frustrating, to say the least, when you visit a brand's website on a smartphone and the text is super tiny or not all the content fits on the phone's screen. When that happens, you have a few options:</span>
<ul>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Pinch and zoom, all while gritting your teeth.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Visit the page on your desktop.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Navigate away from the page, looking for a better option.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">If you're likely most people, you'll choose the third option. Life is too short to try to work with an outdated website.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">On the other hand, mobile-friendly websites are built explicitly for the needs of the modern mobile user. They're clean, easy to read on a small screen, and minimize frustration. Users just need to scroll, swipe and tap to find the information they need. They'll likely stick around the site, jumping from blog post to blog post or exploring your entire for-sale collection.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">2. Higher Search Rankings</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Users aren't the only ones who love mobile-friendly sites. So does Google. Years ago, the search engine giant announced a mobile-first approach. Websites that aren't mobile-optimized, adaptive, or responsive get penalized by the Google algorithm. Your site can drop in the search rankings if it doesn't function well or looks bad on a mobile device.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">On the flip side, when you take a mobile-first approach, you will likely see a boost in your position in the </span><a href="http://zerogravitymarketing.com/solutions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">organic search results</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. That means more visitors will find you, leading to more leads, more awareness, and more conversions.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">3. Higher Conversion Rates</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">People love to shop online. More importantly, people love to shop on their phones. They also use their phones to find service providers, book haircuts and buy concert tickets.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">They want to shop and buy on a site that's simple and easy to use. When you give that to your leads, they're more likely to convert. A mobile-optimized design will help drive your leads to the bottom of the funnel, turning them into fully converted customers.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">4. Better Performance</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">What's almost as frustrating as using a non-mobile-friendly site on a smartphone? Waiting for that site to load. The good news about sites with clean layouts and a mobile-first or responsive design is that they load much faster than clunky, outdated websites.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Faster load times enhance your site's performance and help it rank higher in search engine results. A better-performing website will also improve the user experience, making conversions more likely.</span>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">How to Make a Mobile-Friendly Site</span></h2>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">You don't have to be a design pro to create a mobile-friendly site. Just keep the following best practices in mind as you build your website.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cut the Clutter</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Less is more when designing for mobile devices. Remember, users have to tap and swipe with their fingers. You want to reduce the chance of them tapping the wrong link or struggling to make contact with the item they want to buy.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Leave plenty of space between clickable elements, so the user doesn't click the wrong one accidentally.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Use the Right Layout</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">A single-column layout works best on a mobile device. It's also important to ensure the site functions as well and looks just as good when it's in a landscape or portrait orientation.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Use Modern Coding Languages</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Flash is a thing of the past. It's buggy, takes forever to load, and doesn't work on most modern mobile browsers. Stick with modern coding languages like HTML5 and CSS when creating a responsive and mobile-friendly site.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Be Careful With Pop-Ups</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Pop-ups can lead to more subscribers, but on a mobile device, they can be more of a curse than a blessing. If you want to use pop-ups, make sure they are easy to opt out of so visitors don't bounce away from the site in frustration.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Optimize Images</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Images break up blocks of text and make your site more visually appealing. They can also slow things down considerably if you need to be more careful. Always compress any images and make sure they don't cause a lag in loading time.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">ABT - Always Be Testing!</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Before your site goes live and before any updates, major or minor, test it out. See how it looks on a mobile device. Actually, see how it looks on multiple mobile devices. Testing your website lets you iron out any issues and fix up any problems before they can impact the user experience.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">The world has gone mobile. If you want to continue to deliver a top-notch visitor experience, rank high in the search results, and increase conversions, your site needs to go mobile, too.</span>