Three Things Every Business Owner Should Know About Mobile Responsive Websites

Roughly ninety percent of users in the United States and the UK rely heavily on their mobile devices for internet access, including videos, shopping, and other consumer activities. That alone should be enough reason for your next website to be a mobile-responsive one. However, there are far more reasons to ensure that your next website is responsive. Before you start your next website design, there are some things you should know about mobile responsiveness and why it is important.

Mobile Response Prevents You From Needing Two Sites

Before mobile responsive websites became a standard option, businesses wanting to cater to mobile-dependent consumers had to build two separate websites. Since standard websites don’t appear correctly on mobile devices, web developers had to route users to either the standard site or the mobile site depending on the device they accessed the site from. While this is effective, it has its downsides.

When you have to maintain both a standard site and a mobile one, it means updating two sites instead of one. This not only means spending twice the amount of time on your website updates, but it also means twice the margin for error in the user entry and information updates.

Since a mobile responsive site automatically adjusts based on the device loading the website, it all operates from one single database and website code directory. That means that there’s only one site to update, which reduces the margin for error and the time investment required for maintenance. It also ensures that every user on your website is seeing the exact same information. This consistency is important for your brand identity.

Mobile-Friendly Is Not The Same Thing

If you have been looking into mobile responsiveness and seeing website templates that claim they are mobile-friendly, you might think it means the same thing. The truth is, a mobile-friendly site is not the same thing as a mobile-responsive one.

Mobile-friendly websites are designed to display identically across all devices, but they are not adequately able to incorporate all of the features and functionality that your desktop version will. In a mobile-responsive platform, on the other hand, the site changes to adjust to the mobile display. The site will have a mobile-friendly menu for navigation, and everything appears in a column layout that is easy to navigate and handle.

Mobile Adaptability Preserves Your Search Ranking

As the percentage of mobile users has increased, search engines have begun to recognize the importance of mobile responsiveness. In fact, Google’s search algorithms have started to take a mobile-first approach to search indexing.

This means that Google is prioritizing mobile responsive websites in its search results in an effort to cater to the increasing number of mobile users that are depending on its service. Unfortunately, this means that traditional desktop-friendly sites and mobile-friendly sites are seeing lesser search engine traffic as a result.

If you want to be able to reach potential customers and expand your target customer base, a mobile-responsive website is the best way to ensure that you retain your favor with Google and other search engines. For more information, contact us today.