Gomez Inc. has created the Mobile Readiness Test, a free online tool that provides businesses with an instant evaluation of how well their site performs on a mass-market mobile phone.

The constant presence of the mobile phone puts a greater demand on a mobile site?s availability and performance. But, as adoption of the mobile Web increases, device proliferation, conflicting standards and limited tools make developing and delivering quality mobile experiences a challenge for many organizations.

?The Gomez Mobile Readiness Test is designed to help companies gain visibility into how well their Web or mobile sites are likely to perform and render across popular mobile devices,? said Bertrand Schmitt, vice president of mobile at Gomez, Lexington, MA.

?We make it easy for companies to take the first step in improving the mobile Web experience they offer to their customers by exposing areas where organizations are not following established and proven best practices from organizations like the W3C,? he said. 

?Once the basics are covered, like getting a high score on the Gomez Mobile Readiness Test, companies can move on to more advanced techniques and start to seriously optimize and measure the mobile experiences they are providing to their end users.?

The new tool is available at http://www.gomez.com/mobile-readiness-instant-test/.

A mobile site that fails to perform a transaction at speeds that mimic mobile behavior ? like waiting in line or sitting in a bus ? is unlikely to get consumers to use their service again.

Simply by entering a URL, the Gomez Mobile Readiness Test returns a score from one to five which indicates how well the site complies with mobile Web industry standards like W3C?s MobileOK.

The online tool also provides an analysis of the site?s page weight and detailed test reports from 30 proven mobile Web best practices, including standards compliant code, style sheet use and caching techniques.

The No. 1 challenge is lack of visibility in terms of how mobile Web sites and applications actually perform across a broad range of browsers and devices. 

For example, mobile Web site content may render poorly on a particular device, and if a company doesn?t understand true end-user performance across a broad range of devices, it may be ignoring important customer segments. 

However, the sheer number of browser/device combinations to test performance across is a daunting prospect. 

Also, like the PC Web, mobile Web sites and applications have grown more complex and incorporate an increasing number of third-party services (for example, RSS feeds, mobile video, etcetera), all of which can impact the end-user experience. 

This is known as the Web application delivery chain, and companies face an immense challenge in making sure third-party SLAs are being met and managing performance across all these components.

Gomez had some tips for companies looking to optimize their sites for mobile.

?Test, test, test,? Mr. Schmitt said. ?The only way to ensure success is to minimize the impact of quality issues on your end-users. The best way to achieve this is by ensuring the site or application functions as intended across all the handsets that matter before it is released. 

?Today's testing solutions enable companies to quickly and easily test and view performance across a wide range of browser/device combinations, and conduct ongoing, proactive monitoring across devices, networks and geographies to find and fix problems before they impact end-users,? he said.

?If companies aren't aware of a problem, they can't fix it, and once mobile end-users have had a bad experience they are unlikely to return.?