[social_warfare]
over 67% of Google searches are performed on a mobile device
Do you use your mobile phone to view websites when you are away from your desktop? Do you own an iPad or a tablet device and browse the internet when watching TV? I’m sure that you’ve noticed over the last few years that more and more people own smartphones and it won’t surprise you that they are using them to access information. Google has. And just like you Google have also decided that trying to view and read a website that was made to be viewed on a desktop is a pain, what with all that small type, ‘pinching,’ ‘zooming’ and ‘scrolling.’ Google aims to provide it’s search engine users with the best user experience possible which means providing search results that satisfy the need for information in the most accessible manner. Google reckons that results that require ‘zooming in’ to read the text or ‘swiping 360°’ to find an image aren’t really offering the greatest user experience.
73% of potential customers prefer an easy to use fully functional mobile website with no pinching or zooming
As a consequence Google have released a mobile friendly algorithm update and for some websites this is going to be “Mobilegeddon”!
What does this mean for your business’s website?
potential customers are 60% more likely to abandon searches on non-mobile sites
Ultimately Google are favouring websites that display their information optimally for mobile devices over those that don’t meaning non-mobile friendly websites will suffer in the search engine results. So if your company’s website isn’t mobile friendly you can pretty much expect over the next few months to fall further and further down the search engine result pages as your competitors with mobile friendly websites take your place and potentially take your customers.
Click here now to find out if your website is mobile friendly by Google’s standards
What can you do to make sure your company’s website doesn’t get penalised?
Google recommends the most effective way to make a mobile friendly website is to apply responsive web design, since this complies with their set guidelines of device optimised content and clean, crawlable link structure. Responsive web design isn’t just a case of reducing the information or losing the images, it’s about making this information automatically adapt so that it is just as easy to access on a 5 inch touchscreen as it is on a 24 inch monitor. Using the same HTML code and single URL (domain web address), responsive web design helps save time, money and is easier to keep websites up to date without duplicate content whilst being easy for Google to crawl and index the website content. We use WordPress to build and design our clients websites as not only does it provide us with great creative flexibility and our clients with an easy to use Content Management System, but it allows us to make every website responsive and completely mobile friendly.
Future Proof
Something we hear a lot of is business owners telling us they only had a website built a year or two ago and now it is out of date and unfit for purpose. One of the best parts about using WordPress to build our responsive websites is that it is future proof. If you think the design is starting to look dated we can design a new look to your website (theme) and apply this to the existing content, this changes the whole look and feel throughout all your website whilst not losing any precious SEO rich content. Responsive website design is also 100% capable of being resized for any new shape or size of mobile device that may be introduced, so there’s no need for major overhauls, just simple tweaking and it’s good to go!
Final Words
61% of people have a better opinion of brands when they offer a good mobile experience
As you know the web is constantly changing and if you want to be taken seriously online then you seriously need to look at making your website responsive. Get in touch with us here at Zig Zag by calling 01562 734040 or by our contact form here to discuss how to get above your competition and potentially win their customers.
