How to optimize your website for mobile devices
Peculiarities of website optimization for mobile devices
- user-friendly navigation elements so that visitors can easily click on them regardless of the screen resolution;
- use of vertical scrolling, a simple search option, and the main page button;
- a separate sitemap (in the case of the mobile version) that has all the pages as the main website;
- easy to fill out forms and simple conversion actions;
- structured text for quick perception: headings, sections, bulleted lists, and visual content;
- high-speed page loading. You can check the speed using Google PageSpeed Insights;
- no Flash-based elements, pop-ups, and ads;
- image and video adaptability; in the case of video, it is supported by YouTube;
- hone number markup <a href="tel:+***********"> 8 (***) *** - ** - ** </a>; convenient dialing from the website when clicking on the contact phone number;
- ability to read text on any element without any difficulties.
Ways to optimize your website for mobile devices
- Templates are a suitable option for information resources, forums, and small online stores. To optimize it, you need a script that determines the type of device and displays a specific template depending on it.
When using templates, the website design for mobile devices is simplified: unnecessary elements are removed; thus, it reduces the page weight. - Optimized design plugins and themes are the most convenient way for WordPress projects and other popular CMS.
- A dedicated mobile version on a subdomain is the most time-consuming option, suitable for large portals, social networks, and online stores with a wide range of products.
- Mobile website builders.
Let's have a deeper look at these options of optimization.
Responsive design
The responsive design needs to hide some large elements of the website for mobile devices or replace them with more compact ones.
Desktop appearance:



Mobile website builder
With Wirenode you can create one website absolutely for free:


The tool suggests creating a new mobile website provided there is RSS feed on it. After entering the resource URL, click "Mobilize Blog":





Mobile version for WordPress resources


To select a theme with a responsive design for your own project, go to the "Themes" section and click "Add New":



Its work principle is based on the fact that a duplicate resource is created using AMP HTML. This disables scripts that slow down the site's loading speed, after which Google's website pages are processed to reach the fastest loading.
Install and activate the plugin, then configure it; for this, go to the "Settings" subsection of the "AMP" section. Upload the logo and save it by clicking "Save changes":



After completing the settings, activate "Mobile redirection" in the "Advanced Settings" section:





After making changes, the website looks like this:




Mobile subdomain websites
The mobile version is lightweight and has a simplified design, with all that, all pages should be accessible on it like on the main version. The mobile version should also have a switch button to the main version.
According to Google's recommendations, add this code to each page of the full version to prevent search engines from considering duplicate content on a mobile version:
<link rel="alternate" href="http://m.domen.com/page/" >
<link rel="canonical" href="http://domen.com/page/" >


Checking how the resource is displayed on different devices



Conclusion
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