It’s been a while since we talked responsive web design, hasn’t it? Well, it is time to do that – 2019 has started and having a responsive website has become even more important for overall website performance, especially in terms of SEO. Here are the top 5 reasons we strongly recommend responsive web design:
Mobile search rankings
Google is constantly changing and updating its algorithms and these updates have a significant impact on mobile search rankings. This means that it is not only relevant content that matters when it comes to mobile search rankings – it is also mobile device optimisation that will help your website rank better.
Website load speed on mobile devices
It is well known that responsive web design increases the website load speed on mobile devices. For this reason, faster loading websites on mobile devices are ranked better, but let’s not forget the visitors who use their mobile devices to find quick answers to their questions – if your website does not provide quick answers due to a slow loading speed, do not be surprised if they go and look for them elsewhere.
User Experience
I am still surprised when I visit a non-responsive website these days. The minute I visit one such website, I leave it immediately because the idea of zooming it in in order to read the text is so off-putting that I instinctively go back to the search results page. And my short visit counts! Longer visits, the number of pages visited during one session affect your website’s organic rankings. When Google ‘sees’ that your website has a large number of short visits with only one page per session, it will consider your content irrelevant and guess what – your rankings will drop. This is how user experience affects your SEO and if your website is still not responsive, I hope one of your New Year’s business resolutions for 2019 is to make it mobile friendly!
Googlebot Crawling Efficiency
One of the reasons Google ranks responsive websites better is because they get more easily crawled by Googlebot. The easier and more efficient the crawling is, the more of your website’s content will get indexed. And this is very important for your SEO.
Social Sharing
You can get some valuable traffic through social media – this will help both your SEO rankings and sales! But unreadable content on a slow loading website cannot be easily shared, that’s a fact. If you do not want to end up with just one social media share (coming from you or one of your employees), there is an easy way to make your website content shareable and get more visits – go responsive!
Conclusion
Responsive web design has become a must and our standard web design package includes a responsive version of the website. Though our clients sometimes do not understand the importance of having a responsive website, we are always happy to explain the benefits it will bring to their business. We have recently redesigned the website of one of our clients – Rivergreen, a North East property development company, and the client has already started seeing the benefits of having a responsive website!
