If you Don’t have Responsive Website Design You’re Losing Customers
Searching for your business is not something that’s just confined to a standard sized desktop device these days. With the introduction of ipads, large screen monitors, mobile phones and even tv screens, it’s important to give your potential customers and clients a positive viewing and search experience. Responsive website design caters for a variety of devices and is crucial for your business. Here at SERPedo we believe that it’s especially important for your website to be viewed easily on mobile.
Non-responsive Versus Responsive Website Design
A non-responsive site is one where, if you view it on mobile, the site does not display correctly and reduce to the size of the screen. The content may be cut off or you cannot see the menus. The Pictures display as they would on a larger screen rather than showing an image first, followed by the content on the mobile device.
So why is it so important to make your website design responsive? Well, without getting too technical, there are obvious benefits to having a website with responsive design.
- Your users can view your company and information on their mobile phone
- With a positive experience of your website, there is a higher chance of conversions and conversions can mean profits for your business
- Users can easily share your information (eg imagine you want to meet at a cafe and you want to share the website with your friends or colleagues.)
- Only requires a single google bot to crawl one version of your site
- Doesn’t require redirection from your site to your mobile version
Fortunately, many site themes now come with responsive design however, if your site is over 3 years old and you do not have a Melbourne SEO company working on it for you then chances are, your clients and customers are not getting a very good experience with you and the way it is displaying. They likely cannot read the text well or it is not intuitive based on the screen size.
So, if they are finding it hard to see and access your information on a mobile phone then you are unfortunately losing business to your competitor. It’s that simple.
Please be advised that ranking based on website responsiveness is not a fly-by-night change that will go away or something that google will ignore. It is here to stay so you need to get with the program. While there is still some debate as to whether is helps rankings, there are some key points that are linked to the design of a mobile friendly website.
Since google considers the time visitors spend on your page as a deciding factor as to whether your site is giving them the answer or information they are looking for, it is safe to say that a mobile friendly website will assist users with their search experience.
If they go to your site and are able to navigate and it provides the information they were seeking then they will spend more time on your site. We call this a bounce rate. A reduced bounce rate = recognition that your site is giving a valuable user experience (UX) and this is accounted for in ranking.
To give you an example.
If you were looking to buy dog shampoo and you did a google search for the term ”dog shampoo”, you’ll see the options in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). If a company decided to call their cafe “Dog Shampoo” (yeah I know, not the best example but it will make it clear for you), and pretend you went to their site and discovered it was a cafe and did not sell dog shampoo products then you would leave straight away. This means a high bounce rate for this site. You go there, it’s not what you want, you leave.
Again, looking at the SERPs you found a description that stated they sold dog shampoo and you clicked on that site and went browsing to find a shampoo for your pet that suited and you then bought it, you would have spent time looking through the products on their website and ultimately purchasing. This has been a positive experience and these are some of the metrics that google uses for ranking.
So, this is a no-brainer. Your website must be mobile friendly.
How do you make your Website Responsive or mobile friendly?
Depending on the content management system you are using (ie WordPress), you can have a plugin installed. We sometimes use a plugin to make a website optimised but it will depend on a number of factors such as how old your site is, how plugin intensive your current site is, the rankings you are getting for your site at present and your budget.
Responsive sites will expand or contract according to the device display. Often a responsive website theme will show a hamburger symbol on mobile so you can access further information. Otherwise, the site will expand to fit larger screens without compromising the look and functionality of the site.
If you’re ready to ensure your website is accessible for your current customers and potential ones then give SERPedo a call to find out how we can ensure you have responsive website design for your business.