Business owners are constantly searching for ways to get a leg up on the competition.
One way to gain an advantage with your customers online is by having a website that works well on all devices. Consumers use many different types of electronics to view websites, including mobile technology which is more popular than ever. According to comScore, Inc., mobile is now the leading digital platform with 62 percent of media time being spent on smartphones and tablets.
This means businesses today need to market themselves to users on every device possible. And the best way for most businesses to do that is with a site that utilizes a responsive design.
What is a responsive design?
A website with a responsive design is built to provide an optimal viewing experience across a wide range of devices. Whether you are using a high definition television or an iPhone, a responsive web design will mold itself to fit any screen. That is a big deal for most web surfers.
Next are a few reasons why a mobile-friendly website is important:
How we got here
First let’s go over a brief history of how we got to this point in website design.
Websites were not always created with multiple devices in mind. Most people will remember using desktop computers on dial-up internet in the 1990s. But sure enough, technology started to evolve.
Once mobile technology became popular, the trend in the early 2000s was for websites to utilize two different versions — one for desktop computers and one for mobile devices. The mobile site was often marked with an ‘m’ in the address (example: m.lackeydesigns.com).
Responsive websites started to become more popular by the start of this decade as mobile device usage continued to grow. A Mashable article even called 2013 the “Year of the Responsive Web Design.” Even though web design technology continues to evolve, responsive is considered the easiest and most cost effective method for websites to connect with all users.
Being friendly to mobile
Customers on the web today expect every site to be compatible with the device they are using.
If your site does not meet their expectations, they may leave. According to research by Google’s Think Insights, 61 percent of consumers said they are likely to leave a website immediately if it is not mobile-friendly. Customers are also much more likely to spend money with your business if they have a positive mobile experience.
- When they visited a mobile-friendly site, 74% of people say they’re more likely to return to that site in the future
- 67% of mobile users say that when they visit a mobile-friendly site, they’re more likely to buy a site’s product or service
A responsive design will guarantee a website’s compatibility with all devices. Your mobile customers will appreciate the effort.
Search Engine Acceptance
If you have a functional responsive website, your users are not the only party who will be happy.
Popular search engines like Google officially recommends responsive sites. Many search engines, most notably Google, place an emphasis on websites that are mobile friendly.
Starting in April of 2015, Google made an update to its algorithms to give a priority to websites that display well on smartphones and other mobile devices. This update changed things for mobile users, but the desktop search algorithms stayed the same. The event was nicknamed ‘Mobilegeddon’ by designers and webmasters.
These new algorithms have placed an even bigger emphasis on the need to have a website that works on all devices. With as much as half your customers using cell phones or tablets to access the internet, a mobile-friendly site is needed to keep your online presence at the highest level. And you will be rewarded with fair rankings on all search engines.
Speed is important
Customers are always looking for answers to their problems as fast as possible on the web. People are busy, which means they want to find information as quickly as possible.
A fast website will keep your customers happy. And yes, speed will impact your ranking with search engines as well.
A 2009 Google experiment on the speed of search engines determined that slowing down a results page by 300 milliseconds resulted in a 0.2 to 0.6 percent decrease in the amount of searches per user.
These findings can be true for any website. After conducting this research, Google concluded:
“We encourage site designers to think twice about adding a feature that hurts performance if the benefit of the feature is unproven.”
Having a fast and user friendly website is crucial in keeping consumers interested. A quality responsive design will help you achieve that goal. Beware of templated responsive websites with possible plugin’s and unnecessary ad-ons slowing down your website. Lackey Designs builds websites from the ground up specific to your business needs.
Time to think mobile
As you can see, it is time to take mobile website customers seriously. That is why every site created by Lackey Designs utilizes a responsive design. We understand the importance of having a product that runs quickly and is easy to navigate. Responsive design is here to stay as experts predict up to 10 years before you may have to rebuild your website.
If your business is using a website that is not mobile friendly, it will cost you in the long run. This is the time to modernize your online presence. Contact us for a quote.