Updated: 27th August 2026
This article has been updated in 2026 to combine a few articles into one.
Mobile-friendly websites are a must in the modern digital world.
Mobile devices are woven into almost every part of our lives, connecting our physical world to the digital one in a genuinely practical way. Your customers are on mobile, which means your business needs to be too.
Why mobile matters
Mobile search dominates. The overwhelming majority of search traffic today comes from mobile devices, not desktop.
People use their phones more than their computers. Mobile has become the default way most people interact with the internet, for research, browsing, and buying.
People spend money on mobile. Mobile commerce is a major and growing share of online purchasing, not a niche behaviour.
Mobile sites are faster and more accessible when built properly, giving visitors a smoother path from landing on your site to taking action.
These days, having a website that’s mobile and device-friendly isn’t optional, it’s critical. Not only will customers on mobile devices turn away from a site that isn’t mobile friendly, but search engines will factor this into your rankings too.
How do I tell if my website is mobile friendly?
Some websites adapt to the size of the user’s screen. You can test this roughly on a desktop computer by resizing your browser window, as you make it smaller, a responsive website will start to adapt. Other websites serve up a genuinely different version depending on the device, which can be harder to spot from a desktop.
[Updated] Google used to offer a dedicated Mobile-Friendly Test tool for this, but it was retired in December 2023. Google now recommends using Lighthouse instead, a free, more comprehensive tool that checks mobile usability alongside performance, accessibility and SEO, and it’s built directly into Chrome’s DevTools (right-click any page, choose Inspect, then the Lighthouse tab) as well as available through PageSpeed Insights.
Is there a better way to test across devices?
Being able to test your site on your own desktop, tablet and phone is useful, but not everyone has the same devices you do. Tools that let you preview how your website renders across a wide range of smartphones and tablets in one place can be genuinely useful here, particularly if you’re a web developer wanting to check rendering issues across many device sizes at once, rather than relying only on your own devices.
This isn’t a foolproof system, software on devices changes how websites render over time, but it’s a great way to check how your website performs at different screen resolutions.
In conclusion
All websites we design and develop here at Digital Developments are fully mobile friendly, and we hand-code sites to make sure they not only look good but function correctly and are easy to navigate for your customers. If you need help converting your current website to be mobile friendly, feel free to contact us.