Responsive Website Design is a must today

Your website is telling tales about you – that’s why a Responsive Website Design is a must in today’s world.

Your website says more about you and your business than your home page, the about us page and just about all the content on your site.

And not only does it tell a story to your customers and your referral sources, but it tells an even more telling story to the most important person in Internet marketing : “Mr Google”.

Google is punishing your website if it does not have a responsive website design

With the increasing importance of mobile and other devices, Google gives greater value to websites that are Responsive and adapt their layout to the shape of the screen, whichever way it is held.  It is this responsiveness that says so much about you, your business, and how up to date you are.  It tells a tale of whether you are up to speed not only on the Internet, but in your business and how you treat customers and likely, how you will treat prospects (ie. potential customers).

Gone are the days you could put your website up and let it live there untouched, for years.  Change and adaptability are signals of your capabilities, not just of your website design.

So, let’s take a look at why a Responsive website design (and its mobile-friendliness) is so crucial to any business today:

What Is Responsive Website Design?

Responsive website design allows a site’s layout to change as the screen size being used to view that site changes. A wide screen display can receive a site design with multiple columns of content while a small screen can have that same content presented in a single column with text and links that are appropriately sized to be read and used on that smaller display.

Why is a Responsive Design so critical today?

Here are 4 key reasons:

1. Multi-Device User

We live in a world where our sites our not only being visited by a variety of different devices and screen sizes, but the same customers are returning to our sites at different times using these different devices. This means that, to best support their experience, our sites must work well regardless of which device they may be using at a given time. The same content that they have access to on one device must be present when they return on other devices to ensure consistency and look in the information that they are seeking.  If they don’t have that consistent experience, they may start questioning your value to them and you risk them looking elsewhere (especially if a competitor can offer them that consistency).

2. Improved Search Engine Rankings

Google has long recommended using responsive website design to support different devices and screen sizes, but the search engine took this recommendation a step further in 2014 when they began adding a “Mobile Friendly” label to websites that used this approach when those sites appeared in a search results page on a mobile device.

While this designation was a nice to have, Google said at the time that they envisioned using mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal in the future. Well, as of April 21st 2015, that came to fruition and Google began rewarding sites that were built responsively for multi-device support.

By rewarding sites that are mobile-friendly, Google is effectively penalizing those that are not, making responsive website design an important factor in SEO (search engine optimization) plans.

3. One Site to be maintained

A responsive website is much preferred over separate websites for desktop displays and mobile phones.  Historically, some businesses used to have “mobile -only sites” separate from desktop sites.  And sometimes each site had slightly different content to cater to different needs.  Worse than separate sites was one site only, where the site shrank to fit into the mobile screen size and the only way the reader could view the content was to zoom in and out and scroll every which way.

Since people have now become comfortable with responsive sites and how they work so efficiently, anyone that does not have such a site is sending a glaring message: “we don’t care about user experience”, and by extension, “we don’t care about you, the user.” This message is very dangerous given the ease that customers can now switch to competitors.  Do you really want to run the risk of sending such a message?

4. Future Scalability

One of the best things about a responsive website is that this approach gives you the best chance to support newer devices and screens in the future. Responsive sites are fluid, scaling up or down as needed to best fit device screens. This means that as new devices hit the market with new and never-seen screen sizes, our responsive websites will already be prepared to meet those new devices with a design and experience best suited to whatever screen sizes they throw at us.

Conclusion

Every website, and consequently every business, will benefit from a display that works effectively and efficiently across different screen sizes and on various devices. Not only from a technical and customer service perspective, but from a brand and reputation perspective as well.  By ensuring that responsive design is a feature on your website, you will send a message that you are up-to-date and care for the viewer.  If your website is not a responsive website, it may be time to upgrade.

Special Offer: Updating your website to become Responsive is easy and cheap

Just complete the form on the right or call me at 905-886-2235, and I will explain the process and the costs.  In today’s environment, it’s the best investment you can make.

By Neville Pokroy

Neville Pokroy has over 30 years of experience in all aspects of business growth, strategy and marketing, from big business to sole proprietorships. His hands-on experience spans the most basic to the most strategic, and everything in between. This has provided him with tremendous insight at all levels of the marketing discipline, and in particular, how it impacts on the ability of businesses to leverage marketing as a prerequisite for growth in a changing world.