Responsive Web Design is becoming more and more important as mobile phones and tablets account for almost 50% of all web traffic. Responsive deign basically means your site will look good on any device – it will respond to the screen it’s being viewed on.
Whether on a phone, tablet or desktop computer, if someone gets to your site and it’s difficult to navigate or doesn’t look professional they’ll likely close it out and move on to one of your competitors. In addition, Google and other search engines test websites in different screen sizes and resolutions and any that don’t work well on smaller screen will likely get bumped down in the rankings. The search engines’ sole purpose is to deliver websites that people want to see. If yours doesn’t look good then they assume people won’t want to see it.
Mobile Site Vs Responsive Design
Before mobile responsive design came on the scene sites often had mobile version which was basically a copy of the site with a small-screen layout. The down sides to developing a mobile site are: 1. your content is duplicated, technically on two different sites (www.yoursite.com and mobile.yoursite.com for example) which can trigger red flags for the search engines and hurt your rankings, and 2 you could only design your site for a fraction of the huge number of screen sizes and resolutions. Responsive design allows you to use the same site, pages, content across all screen sizes. It takes more effort but once it’s in place it will work for all screen sizes – now and in the future. Responsive web design is the way to go.
Mobile Design is about Usability
If your site scrolls or shrinks when viewed on small devices the people that find you will probably leave because they either can’t read your content or it’s hard to scroll left and right to find your phone number or contact forms. Responsive mobile design is extremely important to keep mobile searchers on your site and ultimately call your business. If your site isn’t easily readable then your visitors probably won’t hang around long.
Mobile Design is about Search Engine Rankings
More than 40% of all searches are done on phones and tablets so it makes sense that Google wouldn’t rank your site well if it didn’t look good on those smaller devices. In fact, Google’s update has been termed “Mobilegeddon” by top SEO firms because it affected more than two thirds of fortune 500 companies and a far greater percentage of smaller businesses. In short If your site doesn’t look good across all platforms you’ll lose rankings and customers.
It’s Easier Than You Think
Updating a site to meet Google’s mobile requirements is often a straightforward process. Occasionally it requires a redesign, but in most cases we’ve come across it only takes a few hours to make your site responsive. Call us today for a free site analysis and quote.
If your site isn’t mobile ready, I’d recommend a redesign or if possible, updating your code to make your site responsive. Give us a call ad we’ll check out your site and see what it will take to get it looking good on phones and tablets.