No doubt the mobile web industry has been successfully conquering the digital market.

According to the latest 2015 digital device stats, provided by Global Web Index, 80% of users aged 16-64 own a smartphone.

Users make the best of smartphones, using them for shopping (increased by a tremendous 174% year-over-year in 2014), organizing life, messaging and even watching TV on-the-go (36% of customers)!

Consuming 60% of their media time via mobile devices, users expect quality.  The research conducted by Forrester says that 73% of consumers would continue purchasing on a website if they had a positive customer experience; if not, 89% would switch to a rival.

This goes far beyond Ecommerce businesses. So apparently, mobile user experience is on the march like never before.

Google’s Label for Your Website

Following the hottest trends, Google has recently announced a new “mobile-friendly” label which they plan to add to its mobile search results, rewarding websites optimized for cross-platform usage. They have also stated that soon mobile standards compliance might become a ranking signal in their search engine. In either case, the label itself should help your website stand out in the search results and thus help you gain higher click-through rate. Since Google’s search engine market share amounts almost 80% as of December 2014, this announcement cannot be ignored. Hence to be competitive in organic search on mobile platforms, your website should be optimized at short notice.

To help webmasters, Google offers a special test tool to analyze your website in terms of mobile-friendliness. Along with a simple evaluation, the tool shows possible problems with your website and provides feedbackon what can be improved.

4 Simple Rules to Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly

Below are some of the Google recommendations for your website to be labeled mobile-friendly.

1.    Use common software, unlike Flash. Starting June 2014, Google warned webmasters about indicating pages that may not be supported on customer devices. This came as an alarming sign for those who didn’t have a responsive website. Responsive design websites entered the market in 2010, but still just half of B2B vendors have aligned their web presence to the new market changes. It’s up to you whether to pull up the rear. In fact, responsive design results in a nearly 15% increase in unique clicks, so with 37% of users going online mostly via mobile devices, your business can significantly improve its metrics and therefore reach its market goals.

2.    Make the texts on the website readable without zooming. Less than 15 seconds are usually spent on a page by online readers. So if you don’t provide them with easily accessible and masterfully presented material, your customers will be disappointed. Make your texts legible with appropriate fonts, line spacing and other set of features. In this HubSpot article, you can find more information on how to modify your texts effectively.

3.    Organize the content in such a way that scrolling horizontally isn’t necessary. Print and images on your website must always be large enough to see regardless of the device being used. The content must be displayed properly so that an interested reader can get engaged and have a pleasant experience of interacting with your site. The studies revealed that 48% of users get frustrated on a non-mobile friendly site. Being unable to easily scan the content, feeling the need to look for the information, a user is much likely to leave your website without becoming an actual client of yours. Therefore, these reasonable adjustments should be made for your own good.

4.    Plant your links conveniently so that users can easily tap them.  Google suggests that tap targets should be comfortably placed and sized; with that in mind, they provide a range of precise measurements recommended for different objects and spaces on your website. Unless you are eager to see your customers frustrated, it’s time to transform your current mobile website into a more effective and lead-generating one.

With the ever growing global mobile device adoption, your audience is already using mobile to consume information online. If you want to appeal to that audience, it is high time that you make sure you website is mobile-friendly.