Today, the number of users on mobile devices significantly exceeds the number of users on desktop computers and laptops. According to Semrush statistics, the number of mobile users is three times higher than the number of desktop users:
For your website to appeal to search engines, it must display and function correctly on mobile devices. Back in November 2016, Google switched to mobile-first indexing—this means that search bots crawl and analyse the mobile version of a website first, including its features and usability. Therefore, if you do not work on the mobile version of your website, you will not achieve high rankings.
How to Check the Usability of a Website’s Mobile Version
There are several methods and services that allow you to check how website pages display on different mobile devices. Below, I will explain how to use them and provide links to SEO analytics services that can help identify obvious errors in your website’s mobile version.
Checking with Browser Tools
Today, every modern browser provides a way to test whether a website is responsive. I will show you how to do this using the most popular browsers as examples.
Google Chrome
To check how a website displays on a phone using Google Chrome, you need to open Developer Tools. You can do this using the following keyboard shortcuts:
- Ctrl + Shift + I for Windows;
- ⌘ + Option + I for macOS.
You can also use the settings interface: open the menu, point to More tools, and select Developer tools from the drop-down menu.
Once you do this, a console will appear on the screen where you can see the HTML code of the current page. For example:
To view how the website appears on a phone, click the icon showing a tablet and a phone. The icon is located on the left, next to the Elements tab:
A drop-down list of phones available for viewing the website will appear at the top.
Firefox
The keyboard shortcuts for opening Developer Tools are the same as in Google Chrome. You can also open Developer Tools by right-clicking on the screen and selecting Inspect from the menu:
The location of the icon for enabling responsive website view is also different: here, it is located on the right:
Online Services for Testing Website Responsiveness
There are many services for testing website responsiveness. I would highlight the following:
iloveadaptive
This tool allows you to check how a website displays on many devices, including large desktop monitors, which is very convenient because browser tools do not offer this option. It also makes it possible to check pages on several devices simultaneously. For example:
Bing Mobile Friendliness Test
This service allows you to check a website through the Bing search engine; the analysis result is displayed as a conclusion. You cannot run a test using this tool yourself. For example:
Conclusion
To achieve good rankings, it is important to have a responsive website with properly functioning features. In this article, I described the basic ways to check how a website displays on mobile devices. This allows you to independently test your website’s responsiveness and find errors that need to be fixed. Google’s Mobile-Friendly service is no longer available, so you need to check the website yourself. If you would like a consultation or want to order a usability and responsiveness audit of your website’s mobile version, contact us via the online chat on the website or through Telegram.
