With so many users worldwide accessing the Internet from mobile devices, it's important that your website measures up. An 87-page report released by Morgan Stanley in the spring of 2009 predicted that by the year 2015, mobile access will exceed that of desktop Internet access. And that means that, as a webmaster, if your domain isn’t easily viewable on a mobile device, it’s time to get to work.
Is your website mobile friendly? Read on to learn how you can find out.
How to test your website
Unless you owned every single type of mobile device on the market it was difficult in the past to check your website for mobile compatibility. All that has changed. Today that are several online tools available for you to use free of charge that will test every page, image and script on your site and let you know what needs work. Let’s look at two such services.
MobiReady.com
MobiReady.com is a free service that will study your website’s mobile compliance. Simply input your URL and MobiReady.com will go to work testing every page of your domain.
The returned results will give you a single page report that details the size of your individual web pages, the amount of time it takes your site to load, and how mobile devices view your domain. MobiReady is even capable of emulating a variety of mobile smartphones so you can see exactly what your website looks like on different devices. If there are problems with your website’s readability, MobiReady will tell you that too.
W3C
W3C has their own tool that will validate your website’s compliance called the Mobile OK checker. W3C’s tool also gives your website and overall compliance score and several suggestions for improvement.
The W3C website does not test the size or speed of web pages, but it does display the exact nature of your problem areas and give detailed instructions on how to correct those errors.
Simple tips for making your website more mobile friendly
Testing your website with W3C or MobiReady is a good start to making sure that everyone who visits your website will be able to see it, no matter how they’re viewing it. In addition to thorough testing, always keep in mind that there are a few industry standards when it comes to designing for mobile devices:
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Never use frames.
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Add rich media content sparingly.
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Use fluid width layouts.
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Remove advertisement clutter.
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Have clear, easy to find navigation elements.
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Remove image maps which can be problematic for mobile devices.
How mobile friendly is your website?