Which device do visitors use to visit your website?
The internet is accessible via a variety of devices, from the familiar desktops and laptops to everyday mobile users and even the fridge. As a webmaster, it's important to know which way your visitors are most likely to use your website, and that you then take the necessary precautions to best serve this audience. In this blog post, we look at how you can find this out and how you can optimize it.
Understand the users of your website
To improve the user experience, it's important to gain insight into the device usage of your website visitors. Luckily, there are various tools and methods you can use to collect and analyze this information. One of the most commonly used methods is to view reports from web analytics tools such as Google Analytics. Activating this tool for your website is free and can be done with an existing email address or with your company's email address that you set up with us. In most cases we recommend the latter, as it is better to keep such things separate.
Use of web analytics tools
Web analytics tools provide detailed insights into the behavior of your visitors, including the type of device they use to visit your website. In Google Analytics, for example, you can look in the "Mobile" section to see which devices your visitors are using, e.g. desktops, laptops, tablets or smartphones. This gives you an overview of the variety of devices used to visit your website. And how they interact with it. A good indication that something is not quite right or not working properly on one device is if the time spent on the website is particularly short compared to another device.
Responsive web design
Make sure your website is optimized for different screen sizes and devices. With responsive web design, the layout of your website automatically adapts to the screen size, providing a consistent and user-friendly experience regardless of the device used. This contributes to higher visitor satisfaction, regardless of whether they are viewing your website on a desktop, tablet or smartphone.
Responsive design is already integrated into your website in most cases, provided you use a modern method to create the website. Consult the documentation of your content management system (e.g. WordPress) or themes and, if necessary, switch to another CMS that supports this.
Optimizing the speed
Different devices generally have different loading speeds due to different network connections and a number of other factors. Mobile users rely on fast loading times. So make sure your website is optimized to load quickly on mobile networks. Mobile users are extremely quick to click away if they don't get what they want, as their attention span is short. Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can help you identify elements on your website that are impacting loading speed and suggest improvements. There is also a report on this if you use Google Search Console.
Adapt content to the device
Remember to adapt the content of your website to the user's device. Mobile users may be interested in concise information and quick access to the most important functions, while desktop users are more inclined to read more extensive content. Adapt your content strategy to the specific requirements of the different devices. However, do not offer two separate versions of your website depending on the device. This is seen as a negative signal to Google.
Collect user feedback
Actively gather feedback from your users about their experiences on different devices. This can provide valuable insights and help you to identify specific problems that users have on certain devices.
By combining these approaches, you can gain a deep understanding of device usage on your website and make the necessary optimizations to meet the expectations of your different target groups. Understanding device usage allows you to provide a seamless and engaging user experience, regardless of how your visitors reach your website.
