Isabella Di Fabio 5 Coding and Programming tips for mobile websites

Isabella Di Fabio 5 great coding and programming tips for mobile websites Another very relevant factor to ensure a good operation and an optimal positioning in the search engines of a mobile website, that is, its mobile SEO, is its correct programming.

Below, we offer five tips to ensure the success of a website designed to navigate on next-generation mobiles and tablets. This post addresses the importance of search engine optimization for mobile devices. If you are interested in the subject, download our free guide to Introduction to Mobile SEO: Isabella Di Fabio - Five tips for good mobile programming 1) Renew and update web programming Some of the most veteran programming resources and systems on the Net, such as videos and multimedia effects in flash or frames to insert one web page into another, do not usually work on mobile phones and tablets. And if they do, they fail to achieve adequate quality standards.

These types of defects or errors make perfect navigation impossible and are penalized by Google, which is synonymous with the loss of many positions in the search rankings. To avoid it, it is advisable to replace these base web systems, in the case that you want to take advantage and do not start from scratch, with current and valid encodings for mobiles such as: HTML5 (which supports animations and videos), the silverlight player or i-frame.

If you opt for responsive design, the methods used to manage the design and style of content on a mobile site are CSS and WCSS.

2) Use HTML compatible source code If you start a web page from scratch or using a template, it is recommended to create an XHTML compatible source code, since this is the system that presents the most rigid programming standards and, in this way, we ensure correct operation from the web on all devices.

Another advantage of XHTML is that it requires alternative text for elements that are not text, which is ideal for mobile phones since, in the event that a page cannot be downloaded due to incompatibility of formats or some other reason, it can always be displayed said substitute text.

This prevents an error message or unsightly blank page from appearing.

3) Avoid pop-ups and other effects created with javascript Drop-down menus, pop-up windows and forms created with javascript, especially if they are complex, tend to give many navigation problems on mobile devices, so avoid them.

In the event that their substitution is not possible, a possible solution is to place them at the bottom of the page in the mobile version and then replace this with a short list of key accesses, or with links to the main parts of the content or to favorites in the top of the page.

4) Use HTTP headers for mobile HTTP headers on a website help clarify the characteristics of the data being sent from the web.

The most relevant for the development of mobile websites are the following: User Agent. Sends information to the server about the screen size and other important elements of the mobile phone.

Cache-control. It is used to specify which elements should be downloaded by the mobile or server, thus optimizing the download time and the use of bandwidth.

Content-Type. It describes certain aspects of the content: format, type of characters, etc., which help the device to achieve a better execution of certain elements of the web.

Content-Disposition. Allows you to specify files that should not be automatically displayed, but could be opened outside the mobile browser. This is particularly useful for web pages that allow users to download special content such as: applications, games, images, polytones, wallpapers, etc.

5) Mobile accommodation

Although it is not essential, for some websites it may be interesting to hire an independent host or accommodation. There are mobile hosting solutions, such as Mobify.me and MoFusePremium, that offer very interesting additional functionalities such as: graphically organizing the content of a website, creating and updating a CSS for mobile phones, and previewing simulators on the mobile phones of the main brands. .