It’s amazing how many terms we use on a daily basis, without understanding what they mean. The wise thing to do is look it up. For many, the term “mobile friendly website” is at least somewhat of a mystery.

Obviously, from the name you probably can tell that mobile friendly websites have something to do with mobile devices. It’s a big deal, because a big chunk of online traffic comes from people on smartphones or tablets. You must cater to these users if you want them to frequent your site. Google also places a big emphasis on being mobile friendly.

With mobile friendly websites, most of the features and functions from the full-blown desktop site are retained. Instead of people having to pinch and zoom in to read and access different parts of the website, everything is presented in a format that’s simple to use on a mobile device.

Typically, flash animation is eliminated on mobile friendly sites. Instead of drop-down menus, these are replaced with simpler designs. Images are resized so they don’t take up the whole screen.

Thanks to Google’s algorithm, not having a mobile friendly website will actually negatively impact your site’s search rankings. Considering the majority of web traffic comes from smartphones and tablets, that’s bad. This fact alone is reason enough to address this concern.

There are two ways of making a website mobile friendly. One is to use responsive web design. The other is to go with an adaptive web design approach. Each one comes with its own unique set of pluses and minuses. Whichever you choose, the decision to make your website friendly for mobile users is wise.

Both approaches make it so you don’t have to make a separate website for smartphones and tablets. Instead, the site displays differently when someone’s using a mobile device.