Studies are showing how consumers are spending more time connecting to the Internet through mobile devices compared to desktop computers. This trend has already been taken into consideration by internet giants, opting them to advise that mobile-friendly websites are going to get more ranking points. This mobile-first index is an important shift in search engine optimization, and must really be taken into consideration by businesses as they maintain and develop their websites.

To help you in ensuring that you do not get left behind on this shift in website development, we will be sharing 6 effective ways on how to make your WordPress website mobile-friendly. The following tips can help you easily make your site significantly friendlier for mobile users.

#1. Images, CSS, and HTML optimization

There are basically two primary considerations in making your site mobile-friendly: designing your site to fit a smaller screen while keeping it visually delightful and making the most out of objects without causing performance issues on less capable devices – in short, it’s balancing user experience and site performance.

Images, an important element for any website, should be optimized for mobile. Of course, images should be smaller to ensure that it will look fine on a small screen. There are tools that can help compress images to a smaller file size. You should also control the use of images, and that you should remove photos that do not exactly add value to your pages. Remove unnecessary photos that could just weigh your website down. and Even then, the photos that will stay on the site should be lightweight. You should also consider that most users browsing through mobile would more often use cellular data, and it would cost them a huge amount of their data allocation if you retain a number of high-resolution images.

It’s also recommended that you compress the HTML and the CSS of your website in order to keep your page running smoothly on mobile. If not optimized for mobile, the page would have design and performance issues on handheld devices. Make sure that you tweak your settings so that everything works perfectly. It would be great if you make use of a trusty cashing plugin that can help you out.

#2. The Help of Responsive Plugins

There’s a wide range of plugins that can help improve your site’s functionality on mobile devices. Here are some plug-ins that you should consider using to improve your site’s mobile-responsiveness:

Any Mobile Theme Switcher

This plug-in helps provide themes for your mobile website that is different from what would appear on desktop web browsers. First, it detects whether the visitor is using a mobile device or not, and would alter the design to your desired theme.

Call Now Button

A straightforward plugin, it adds a mobile-integrated call button on your website, which can really capture the attention of mobile users. This is very helpful in raising customer call-ins for inquiries, setting appointments, or basically just to bring customers in touch with your business.

Cornerstone Page Builder

This plug-in provides a lot of ways to include various elements to your website.

Dynamic Widgets

It helps you manage widgets on mobile sites and allows you to choose for what pages on your site these widgets would appear so that the overall performance of your clients’ phone won’t be affected

Favicon by Real Favicon Generator

This makes your mobile site flexible to the screen size to make sure that it runs smoothly across various mobile devices.

Max Mega Menu

This plug-in manages the menu of your mobile website. This feature helps make your mobile site easy to navigate, considerably improving the experience of your site’s visitors.

Mobile app Plugin

If you want to easily transform your website into a mobile website or create mobile app out of your website, this is an excellent plug-in that you should consider using.

Smush Image Compression and Optimization

This keeps your photos looking great while keeping file size manageable, ensuring that your images would load quickly on mobile devices without compromising quality.

WordPress Mobile Pack

This plugin helps you come up with a great mobile website and has a number of themes that can help you set up your mobile website.

WP Touch

It ensures that visitors using mobile devices will be directed to your mobile site. Your mobile site would also adjust to the screen size of the device that being used.

Plugins are very helpful especially when keeping a mobile website smart. Make sure that you make use of decent plugins and that your site works smoothly.

#3. Pop-ups are a no!

While it is understandable that popups are marketing strategies, they must not lead to a bad user experience, especially on mobile sites. That is why these should be taken down for mobile websites. Popups and interstitials that cover the whole screen are already bothersome for desktop computers, but it is even worse if on mobile. Sites that make use of pop-ups and interstitials loses points from Google, so make sure that you avoid making use of these in your mobile website.

#4. The use of AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages project makes mobile content load faster. Google sets optimization standards that greatly improve the loading speed of an optimized site. The fast loading, coupled with standardized formats, improve the customer experience to a great degree.

An “AMPed” site will surely be mobile-friendly the way Google wants a site to be. Furthermore, AMP websites are expected to rank higher in the results page. So, aim to have your website abide by AMP standards.

#5. Full-Fledged Mobile App Consideration

Earlier, a plugin that can help transform your site to an app has been discussed, which is vital because mobile apps are also evolving in a fast pace. There are mobile apps for various needs, and having a dedicated app for your site is a brilliant idea.

While some businesses only have websites, a number of businesses maintain both mobile website and mobile app. While doing the latter is an added challenge, it’s quite rewarding as the app version of websites are more engaging, and could help you improve the user experience of your customers without being limited by any web browser.

Mobile Friendly Test

Google has a mobile-friendly test which can help you assess which areas of your mobile website will need more work. You may also make use of Google Analytics which provides you with the ability to determine what kind of mobile devices your visitors use. This can help you prioritize as to what device you will need to optimize best.

Make sure to utilize this helpful tool to determine what you need to do to make your site mobile-friendly.

#6. True Shift in Search Rankings

With Google’s mobile-first index, being mobile friendly is a necessity for business that are engaged in websites. While the SEO is not revolving on only making your site mobile-friendly, it is a significant factor for ranking.

Our tips above can help you step up your mobile-friendliness game so make sure that you spend time in adding the above tips to your website management initiatives. SEO now heavily involves mobile-friendliness so make sure that you are not left behind.

Perhaps the best way to conclude this is that WordPress itself is finding ways to help WordPress sites more compatible for mobile. Your actions plus that of WordPress itself can work hand-in-hand to help you reach the desired goal in the search engine results pages.