Users deal with too many frustrations when using their mobile phones to search the internet. Why is it so hard to find information on non mobile-friendly websites when using a mobile device? Isn’t it annoying when you go to a website on your mobile device and you can hardly read the teeny-tiny words on your screen? How many websites have you had to pinch and zoom in order to read the information provided? When you pinch and zoom, how many times have you accidentally clicked on the wrong link and had to go through the long process of clicking just to get back to the page you were on before accidentally clicking the wrong link? Thanks to Google’s Mobilegeddon, these frustrations are slowly disappearing.

Having a mobile-friendly website is a must if you want to keep users happy, and have your website appear at the top of Google’s search engine. If the website isn’t mobile-friendly, it will be at the bottom of Google’s search list. Effective April 21, 2015, Google began implementing changes to their mobile search algorithm in an effort to prevent negative user experiences caused by mobile-unfriendly websites, and prevent users from getting stuck on a frustrating desktop site with their mobile devices. With the increasing demand for mobile compatibility, businesses providing websites that are not mobile-friendly have been suffering greatly by dropping in Google mobile search ranks. If a happy customer is what businesses want, providing a mobile-friendly site to customers will prove to do the job.

When examining a website on their mobile devices, 57% of users will abandon that website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load (Source: Strangeloop Networks) and 85% of mobile users expect pages to load as fast or faster than they load on the desktop (Source: Keynote). If one website takes too long to load, users will just go back to Google and find a new link, which is often a competitor’s mobile-friendly website. With a mobile-friendly site, users are able to navigate with ease. The easier it is for the user to maneuver a site on their mobile phones, the longer they will stay on that website and the more likely they will engage in business or purchase a product from that website.

Whether you have a mobile website or not, you’ll want to ensure that it’s serving the needs of your customers. Slow sites, sites that don’t include all of the information or functionality that the desktop site provides, or otherwise poorly designed mobile websites can be as detrimental to business as no mobile website at all.

Go to your website on your smartphone and see what your customers are experiencing. Ask yourself:

  • Did the page load quickly?
  • Are the fonts easy to read?
  • Is the menu easy to access?
  • Is the call to action clearly defined?
  • Are all of the desktop features and information included in the mobile version?

If you come across any issues or answer “no” to any of the above questions, you’re not providing a mobile optimized experience and you’re not maximizing your website’s full potential.

There are tools you can use to check your site’s mobile-friendliness and speed. Keep in mind, however, that passing Google or other automated “mobile-friendly” tests cannot fully assess the actual usability of the site – you’ll need an actual user for that.

Test your site now at http://www.wompmobile.com/analyze

This post originally appeared here. 

Read more: Mobile-Friendly Is First Step Toward Google Loving You