In today’s digital landscape, where users constantly switch between devices (hello - it’s me!), a mobile-friendly design is no longer just a “nice-to-have” — it’s an essential for online success. Search engines like Google have made mobile-friendliness a key factor in SEO rankings, recognising that websites optimised for mobile users deliver a better experience and, in turn, higher engagement. This shift means that designing for mobile is now fundamental to building a user-centric website and improving your online visibility.

*How does your website currently stack up on mobile devices?*

The Difference Between Responsive Web Design and a Mobile Site

Back in the day, to have a mobile-friendly site, you’d have to create - and maintain another version of your website that was built specifically for smaller screens. Hashtag - not ideal. Cue responsive web design, where your design adapts fluidly to different screen sizes, ensuring your layout, images, and content scale appropriately no matter the device you’re on. This seamless approach is way better as it offers consistency across devices and reduces the need for maintaining a separate version of your site. Yay for technological advancement hey!

Mobile Design on Squarespace 7.1

Now if you’ve been using Squarespace for a while (and previously had - or still have your site in Squarespace 7), you’ll be used to your mobile design just being taken care of for you. With the launch of Squarespace 7.1, mobile design was put back in the hand of the designers - to some extent.

With Squarespace 7.1, your site doesn’t automatically adapt to mobile devices as seamlessly as previous versions. 7.1 introduced a more standardised design framework, which gives us designers a whole lot more design freedom than it used to, but it also means we need to make manual adjustments to achieve a truly mobile-friendly layout. Unlike earlier versions where content would often reflow automatically, 7.1’s block layouts and spacing can appear cluttered on smaller screens without a few tweaks.

For example, column layouts, image blocks, and spacing between elements may look perfect on desktop but can overlap or appear misaligned on mobile. You’ll want to go into Squarespace’s mobile view editor and tweak these elements specifically for mobile view, ensuring text, images, and calls-to-action remain clear and accessible. By manually refining the mobile experience, you’re improving usability and boosting SEO performance by ensuring your Squarespace site meets the demands of mobile-first indexing.

*How to tweak your website design for mobile on Squarespace*

Mobile-Friendly Best Practices

Now that we’ve gotten some of the history out of the way, as well as how you can tweak your mobile design in Squarespace, let’s take a look at some of the things you can do to make your website more mobile-friendly:

Set Optimal Screen Width: A best practice in mobile design is setting your max site width to 1920px or more. This ensures your website remains sharp and consistent on high-resolution devices, creating a polished look whether viewed on mobile, laptop or larger desktop screens.
Less is More: Mobile users tend to value simplicity and speed. Limit excessive elements that clutter the interface and slow down loading times. Instead, focus on clean, intuitive layouts that let users find what they need without extra friction. Don’t be afraid of white space in your design!
Optimise Link Spacing: With smaller screens, it’s crucial to increase spacing between links and buttons to prevent accidental taps. Ensure that the interactive elements on your site are large enough to be tapped easily, and far away enough from other tappable elements that user don’t click on the wrong one. This mistake will lead to a lost visitor quicker than you can say “tap tap”.
Understand Loading Speeds: Mobile devices often load websites more slowly than desktops due to reduced processing power, network limitations, and data compression requirements. Prioritise speed by compressing your images, reducing redirects, and minifying code to improve your site’s performance.
[In]Consistency Across Screens: Remember that it’s natural for your website to look different on various devices due to screen size, orientation, and some other techy reasons. What your visitor sees on their latest iPhone may not be the same as you see on your year-old Samsung. Embrace this by testing your site on multiple devices to ensure it remains functional and visually appealing everywhere so that you have some level of consistency. And then let go of the small differences you can’t resolve.

Top 5 Ways Mobile Design Impacts SEO Rankings

When you optimise your website for mobile devices, you’re not only creating a better experience for your visitors, but you’re also impacting your search rankings, and here’s why:

Mobile-First Indexing: Google’s mobile-first indexing means the mobile version of your site is what Google considers first when ranking. Without a mobile-optimised site, you could see lower rankings.
Bounce Rate and Engagement: A site that’s hard to navigate on mobile drives users away quickly, increasing your bounce rate and signaling to search engines that your site isn’t providing a quality experience. A better mobile experience = people staying on your site for longer = more engagement in your content from those people = a tick of approval from your visitors to the search engines. It’s wins all around!
Page Speed: As mobile users typically expect quick load times, search engines prioritise faster sites in search results. Optimising images, minimising code, and leveraging browser caching are effective ways to improve mobile loading speed. Tick for your visitor, tick for your search ranking.
User Experience (UX): Search engines love sites that offer a good user experience for their customers (aka, the people who visit your website). Search engines consider factors like readability, layout, and interactivity when ranking mobile sites, and a user-friendly design that adapts seamlessly can boost your rankings significantly.
Local SEO Boost: Mobile users often search for businesses nearby, making mobile optimisation essential for local SEO. Ensuring quick access to location-based information can help improve your visibility in local searches. Even more reasons to invest the time in optimising your site’s mobile design.

*A mobile-optimised website will help boost your local visibility (if that’s a goal for you)!*

5 Steps to Improve Your Mobile Design

Switch to Responsive Design: Ensure your website is fully responsive to create a consistent experience for users across devices.
Optimise Images: Compress images before you load them, or use an integration to help you with your existing images. Also, choose the right formats to reduce loading times without sacrificing quality. JPEG’s have a smaller, more compressed file size so they’re ideal for speeding up load times. But, PNG’s support transparency, which makes this file type ideal for graphics such as logos and icons.
Streamline Navigation: Use simplified menus and clear calls-to-action to help your mobile users navigate effortlessly through your content.
Test on Multiple Devices: Regularly check your site on different screen sizes, orientations, and resolutions to catch inconsistencies. You can easily check your design in the Squarespace mobile view tool, but there are also other nifty tools to help you check what your site looks like across a broad range of current devices and screen sizes. Tools like this one.
Invest in Site Speed Improvements: Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify ways to make your site faster and more efficient.

By considering these aspects of mobile-friendly design - from understanding mobile design best practice and how it can impact your search rankings, to practical tips you can implement on your own site - you’re setting the stage for a website that’s not only SEO-friendly but also genuinely enjoyable for your visitors (aka future customers).

As you integrate these mobile-focused features, you’ll see improvements in your search rankings, user satisfaction, and, ultimately, your brand’s reach and engagement. It’s win’s all round with a mobile-optimised website.