Mobile-website-friendliness and usability.

In today's digital age, having a website for your business is crucial to stay ahead of your competitors and have access to a large market share. However, having just any website won't suffice. The website must be effective and perform its intended functions, which include strengthening credibility, showcasing branding, generating leads, improving product search results, providing customer service, communicating announcements, and amplifying digital marketing.

One of the most crucial aspects of a website's effectiveness is its mobile-friendliness and usability. A website that is not mobile-friendly, usable, or properly indexed may not be accessible to potential customers, rendering all the effort put into creating the website useless.

Mobile internet usage statistics show that 59.6% of website traffic and 92.1% of internet users come from mobile devices. The number of active mobile internet users is estimated to be 4.32 billion and is expected to increase with the widespread adoption of 5G technology. A mobile device refers to a piece of portable electronic equipment that can connect to the internet and can include smartphones, tablets, laptops, smartwatches, e-readers, and handheld gaming consoles.

Google, the most popular search engine, has shifted to mobile-first indexing, meaning it primarily uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking, rather than the desktop version. This means that a website that is not optimized for mobile-first indexing may see a negative impact on its search rankings across both mobile and desktop searches.

When it comes to search engines, Google has a market share of over 90%, making it the primary search engine of focus for SEO and marketing professionals. Other popular search engines include Microsoft Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, Ask.com, and Ecosia.

A mobile-friendly and usable website will perform better on all devices and is more likely to achieve its marketing goals. A mobile-friendliness test grades a website based on several factors, including site speed, usage of CSS and JavaScript, plugins, text readability, and screen compatibility. By testing a website's accessibility and ease of use on a mobile device, businesses can ensure they are reaching their intended audience and fulfilling their marketing goals.

Here are some links to two easy-to-use mobile-friendly test sites that will give you some answers straight away:

https://pagespeed.web.dev/

https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

In terms of mobile-first indexing, you can visit the following site for some advice on best practices:

https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/mobile-first-indexing