Mobile-First
Designing your website for phones first - where most tradie searches happen.
The Tradie Take
Mobile-first is like making sure your workshop sign is easy to read from a moving car, not just when someone's standing in front of it. Most customers find you while they're on the move - stuck in traffic, waiting at a cafe, or standing in their flooded laundry with water around their ankles. Your site has to work for them in that moment, not just when they're sitting at a desk.
Definition
Mobile-first means designing and building your website for mobile devices before designing for desktops. Most people searching for tradies do it on their phone - often in an emergency. Google now primarily uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking. If your site doesn't work well on a phone, you're invisible to most of your potential customers.
How It Works
- 1 Google uses the mobile version of your site to determine rankings
- 2 A mobile-unfriendly site (tiny text, unclickable buttons, slow loading) gets penalised
- 3 Mobile users expect fast loading, easy-to-tap buttons, and click-to-call functionality
- 4 Most website builders (WordPress, Squarespace) have mobile-responsive themes
Tips for Tradies
- Test your site on a phone - is the phone number tappable? Can you read the text without zooming?
- Click-to-call is non-negotiable for tradie sites
- Google's Mobile-Friendly Test tool shows you any mobile issues for free