Making your child care website mobile-friendly requires a little extra work, but is essential for delivering a user-friendly experience to fast-paced families. Busy on-the-go moms and dads are going to be looking at your website on their smartphones, rather than desktop computers, so it’s important that you use responsive web design to connect with them!
Additionally, Google’s new mobile first index ranks websites based on their mobile version. If you want your child care website to show in Google’s search results, it must cater to mobile users.
Here are some tips for optimizing your daycare’s website for mobile first indexing:
Minimal Content
Less is more when it comes to optimizing for mobile. On-the-go parents using mobile devices are looking at small screens, so it’s important that your website’s content is minimal and straight to the point. Determine what information you want to prioritize on your website, and remove what is unnecessary.
Simple Web Design
Minimalism applies to all aspects of a mobile first website, including responsive web design. A simple web design allows mobile users to scroll and find exactly what they’re looking for. Start by building a straightforward navigation menu. This way, parents can quickly locate a page on your child care site without having to search too long.
Mobile Page Speed
Page speed is a big component of mobile optimization. Busy parents are going to expect a fast load time. People are more likely to leave your website if it’s too slow. You can analyze your site’s page speed with Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.
Image Optimization
Optimizing your website’s images for a mobile device will improve user experience with faster page speed and sleek visuals. If your image file size is too big, it will slow your website down significantly. The two factors that affect file size are image size and resolution.
If the images on your website are larger than necessary, you may want to resize them to fit properly on a mobile screen. For example, if an image on your website is 2000 pixels wide, reduce it to 700 pixels. In addition, the higher the resolution, the bigger the file size. Anything above 72dpi (dots per inch) is unnecessarily high and will affect your page speed.
Use Large Text and Buttons
When parents are using their mobile devices to look at your website, they should not have to put on reading glasses or zoom in to see. Check to make sure your text is visible and your buttons are large enough to see and tap on a mobile device.
Test It First
The best way to see if your daycare’s website is mobile-friendly is to test it! Google’s mobile-friendly test is a great tool that will give you a mobile usability report to make any necessary changes.
