Designing for Mobile First: Best Practices with Elementor & Astra

Posted by: Collins

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Preface

Are you ready to dive into the world of mobile-first design? In today’s digital landscape, where smartphones dominate web browsing, creating a mobile-friendly website is no longer optional—it’s essential. With Elementor and Astra, you have powerful tools at your fingertips to craft stunning, responsive websites that look great on any device. This guide will walk you through the best practices for designing with a mobile-first approach, ensuring your site delivers a seamless user experience, boosts SEO, and keeps your audience engaged.

Let’s get started and transform your web design strategy!

Why Mobile-First Design Matters

Before we jump into the how-to, let’s understand why prioritizing mobile design is crucial.

  • Mobile Usage is Surging: A significant portion of web traffic comes from mobile devices. Ignoring this audience means missing out on potential customers and engagement. Statista reports that mobile devices accounted for approximately 60 percent of website traffic worldwide in the first quarter of 2024 (Statista).
  • SEO Benefits: Google prioritizes mobile-first indexing, meaning your site’s mobile version is the primary factor in search engine rankings. A mobile-friendly site improves your SEO and visibility.
  • Improved User Experience: A well-designed mobile site offers a better user experience, leading to increased engagement, lower bounce rates, and higher conversion rates.

Definition:
Mobile-first design is the approach of designing a website or application for mobile devices first, before scaling up to larger screens like desktops. This ensures that the core experience is optimized for the smallest screens and then enhanced for larger ones.

Getting Started with Elementor and Astra for Mobile-First Design

1. Choosing the Right Tools: Elementor and Astra

  • Elementor: This powerful drag-and-drop page builder makes it easy to create custom designs without coding. Its intuitive interface and responsive design options allow you to tailor your site for mobile devices effortlessly. Prettylink: Elementor Page Builder
  • Astra: A lightweight and highly customizable WordPress theme, Astra is optimized for performance and speed. It offers numerous pre-built templates and extensive customization options, making it ideal for mobile-first design. Prettylink: Astra Pro Check out this post on how to install Astra starter templates

Together, Elementor and Astra provide a robust foundation for creating responsive websites. Astra Theme is also mentioned in this blog post Top 10 Valuable AI Plugins for WordPress to Boost Your Blog

Info:
Before you start, make sure you have Elementor and Astra installed on your WordPress site. You can find detailed installation guides on the official WordPress plugin repository. Also, make sure that you already have [added a favicon to your wordpress website](https://www.startmakingwebsites.com/2-easy-ways-on-how-to-add-a-favicon-to-your-wordpress-website/)

2. Setting Up Your Mobile-First Environment

  • Install and Activate Elementor and Astra: Ensure both are installed and activated in your WordPress dashboard.
  • Choose a Responsive Starter Template: Astra offers various starter templates designed for different niches. Select one that aligns with your project and is inherently responsive. You can learn how to install astra starter templates
  • Enable Elementor’s Responsive Editing Mode: In Elementor, switch to responsive mode to preview and edit your design for different devices (desktop, tablet, mobile).

Best Practices for Mobile-First Design with Elementor and Astra

1. Prioritize Content and Functionality

  • Identify Core Content: Determine the most important information and features your mobile users need. Focus on delivering these essentials first.
  • Simplify Navigation: Mobile navigation should be intuitive and easy to use. Use a clear menu structure, hamburger menus, and concise labels.
  • Optimize Images and Media: Large images and videos can slow down your site on mobile devices. Compress images without sacrificing quality and use responsive video embeds. Here is a blog post that explains how to quickly make high-resolution screenshots in base 64 to help with images.

2. Design with a Mobile-First Mindset

  • Start with the Smallest Screen: Begin designing for mobile and then scale up. This ensures that the mobile experience is never an afterthought.
  • Use Elementor’s Responsive Controls: Elementor provides granular control over how elements appear on different devices. Adjust font sizes, margins, padding, and visibility settings to optimize the mobile layout.
/* Example CSS for responsive typography */
h1 {
  font-size: 24px; /* Default for mobile */
}

@media (min-width: 768px) {
  h1 {
    font-size: 36px; /* Larger for tablets */
  }
}

@media (min-width: 992px) {
  h1 {
    font-size: 48px; /* Largest for desktops */
  }
}
  • Leverage Column Ordering: Control the order in which columns stack on mobile devices to ensure a logical flow of content.

3. Optimize for Touch

  • Use Large, Clear Buttons: Make buttons easy to tap with fingers. Ensure they are adequately sized and have sufficient spacing around them.

Hint: According to Google’s mobile guidelines, buttons should be at least 48×48 pixels.

  • Consider Touch Gestures: Design elements that respond to common touch gestures like swipes and pinches.

4. Enhance Performance

  • Minimize HTTP Requests: Reduce the number of files your site needs to load by combining CSS and JavaScript files.
  • Enable Browser Caching: Implement browser caching to store static assets locally, reducing load times for returning visitors.
  • Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN distributes your site’s content across multiple servers, ensuring faster loading times for users worldwide.Consider using Hostgato, Dreamhost, Bluehost or GoDaddy for your hosting needs.

Info: Site speed is a crucial ranking factor. You can use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to identify and fix performance bottlenecks (PageSpeed Insights).

5. Test and Iterate

  • Use Real Devices: Test your site on a variety of actual mobile devices, not just emulators, to get an accurate sense of the user experience.
  • Gather User Feedback: Solicit feedback from real users and use it to refine your design and functionality.
  • Monitor Analytics: Track mobile traffic, bounce rates, and conversion rates to identify areas for improvement. Google Analytics is a very useful tool to enhance your website and to track metrics (Google Analytics).

Elementor-Specific Tips for Mobile-First Design

Utilizing Elementor’s Responsive Mode

Elementor’s responsive mode allows you to preview and adjust your designs for different devices. Here’s how to make the most of it:

  • Accessing Responsive Mode: Click the responsive mode icon at the bottom of the Elementor editor to switch between desktop, tablet, and mobile views.
  • Adjusting Column Widths: Modify column widths for each device to optimize layout. For mobile, consider setting columns to 100% width for a single-column layout.
/* Example CSS for adjusting column widths in Elementor */
.elementor-column.elementor-col-50 {
  width: 50%; /* Default for desktop */
}

@media (max-width: 767px) {
  .elementor-column.elementor-col-50 {
    width: 100%; /* Full width on mobile */
  }
}
  • Controlling Visibility: Use Elementor’s visibility settings to hide or show elements on specific devices. This can be useful for removing clutter or displaying different content on mobile.

Optimizing Typography

/* Example CSS for responsive font sizes */
h2 {
  font-size: 1.5em; /* Default for mobile */
}

@media (min-width: 768px) {
  h2 {
    font-size: 2em; /* Larger for tablets */
  }
}
  • Line Height and Letter Spacing: Adjust line height and letter spacing to improve readability on mobile devices.

Streamlining Forms

  • Simplify Form Fields: Minimize the number of required fields to reduce friction on mobile devices.
  • Use Input Masks: Implement input masks to guide users when entering data like phone numbers or credit card numbers.
  • Optimize Button Placement: Place submit buttons in a prominent and easily accessible location.

Astra-Specific Tips for Mobile-First Design

Leveraging Astra’s Mobile Header Options

Astra provides extensive options for customizing your site’s header on mobile devices. Make sure that you read the blog post about How to create a sticky navigation for astra starter templates with the free version of astra. There is also a blog post about a free sticky header for astra starter templates with css only.

  • Mobile Header Layout: Choose from different mobile header layouts, including stacked, inline, and centered options.
  • Menu Styles: Select a mobile menu style that works best for your site. Options include hamburger menus, dropdown menus, and full-screen menus.
  • Header Breakpoint: Set a breakpoint to determine when the mobile header should activate based on screen size.

Utilizing Astra’s Performance Options

Astra is designed for performance, but you can further optimize it for mobile devices:

  • Disable Unnecessary Features: Disable features you don’t need to reduce bloat and improve loading times.
  • Optimize CSS Delivery: Use Astra’s CSS optimization options to reduce the size of your CSS files.
  • Enable Lazy Loading: Implement lazy loading for images to defer loading until they are visible in the viewport.

    Conclusion

Designing for mobile first with Elementor and Astra is not just a trend—it’s a necessity for creating successful websites in today’s mobile-dominated world. By prioritizing mobile users, simplifying content, optimizing performance, and continually testing and iterating, you can create a seamless and engaging experience for your audience.

Remember, a mobile-friendly website is a business-friendly website. Embrace these best practices, and watch your site thrive!

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