Is your site mobile-friendly? When we say this we mean does your website work well on devices with smaller screens than traditional desktop/laptop computers? Not only is this important from a user's point of view, but the search engines now include mobile-friendliness as one of their metrics when deciding where you should appear in their search results.
In the UK, when we say "Search Engine", we pretty much mean "Google". As at April 2017, Google had the highest market share of search by far, with 85.74% of the desktop, tablet and console search engine market here. After Google comes Bing, with a market share of 10.07%, followed by Yahoo! with 3.16%.*
So, if you want your site to rank well in Google, one of the elements you need to get right, is mobile friendliness i.e. whether your site displays well on smartphones and tablets!
Why Does Being Mobile Friendly Matter?
Google Likes It
If you want your site to do well on search engines, you have to make sure you meet their standards and in April 2015, Google included mobile-friendliness in its algorithm, providing a significant edge to mobile search rankings of web pages that are mobile friendly.
Users Like It
In late 2016, the number of people using mobile and tablet to browse the Internet exceeded the number using desktop for the first time!** The figures for the younger generation far outweigh those of older people, so this statistic is only going to increase over time. People that visit a non-mobile friendly site via mobile/tablet will generally:
- spend less time browsing the site (smartphone users are quick to give up on a website they can't read properly)
- be less likely to perform any desirable actions (such as making a purchase or contacting you)
- be more likely to return back to the search engine results (to find/visit another website)
This means that even if your site is found on search, if it isn't mobile-friendly, over 50% of visitors are less likely to engage with your business.
How Do you ensure an effective Mobile Responsive site?
Google says there are 3 main things that you should consider when building a Mobile Friendly site:
- Ease of use for site visitors: The site design should be able to self explain the site flow and objective so that a visitor is able to easily accomplish their common tasks. In other words, streamlining the user experience and reducing the number of user interactions to accomplish a given task
- Measuring the effectiveness of the above Ease of Use
- Developing the design such that one site works on all devices (i.e. Desktop, Laptop, Tablets and Mobiles) rather than making separate sites for each device as happened only a couple of years ago. Known as Responsive Design, the site design automatically adjusts in accordance to the screen size of the device.
Better Websites
As already mentioned, with the advancement of mobile technology, the number of people using Mobile Devices to browse the Internet is increasing year by year. But clearly there are still many people still using the traditional desktop/laptop, so it's vital that your website works effectively on all screen sizes/resolutions (big and small). Ignoring market trends could be a blunder for any company's Internet presence, as a bad mobile experience will have your customers jump to your competitors instead. Whilst Responsive Web Design isn't the only thing that drives sales, having a site that functions well on multiple devices is essential for a good user experience; which keeps more visitors on your site and usually results in more sales.
Where can I find help?
If you've checked whether your site is mobile-friendly and have found that it isn't, contact us to help improve your sites appearance and functionality on mobile devices. Whether it's making your existing site more responsive, redesigning your site from scratch or just providing your options, we can give give you the answers to bring about a positive impact on your business. We can work with you, to create an attractive site that uses the latest web technologies to look good on a range of devices and deliver a superior experience to visitors.
Contact us now if you would like assistance on responsive design or any other web development needs.
