I don’t get much traffic, should my website be responsive?

We strongly recommend that your website should be made responsive to a mobile view. With 80% of people using mobiles to browse the internet, a responsive website design is becoming a much needed necessity. Google’s announcement earlier this year stated that they will be including a new algorithm to its search engine which will favour mobile friendly websites over non responsive sites. The new algorithm will review search results and place those websites that are mobile friendly higher up the search engine ranking. This means your website might lose visibility in the mobile Google search results if your website isn’t optimised for mobile.

As users of technology, we have become accustomed to having things in front of us to the point that we have become ‘lazy’ as users. If we can’t find what we need instantly we will abandon that website and find one that delivers what we want, faster.

Don’t assume that because your website is mobile friendly this means that it is responsive. There is a difference between the two. Mobile friendly means that a website renders and functions on mobiles and other devices (image 1) whereas mobile optimised means that the website has been designed and formatted to render easily on the small screens of a mobile device (image 2). As you can see there is a big difference between the two images with how the web pages are displayed.

A few features that you will see on a mobile optimised website are:

• Larger buttons
• Less text and focuses on key points
• Fewer graphics
• Easy to navigate

Refer to this article by one of our front end developers, Vicky, ‘Things to consider when going mobile‘ which highlights points of design elements to think about when going responsive.

Need to find out if your website passes the Google mobile test? Click on this link https://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ and don’t panic if your site doesn’t pass. We are here to offer help and advice. If you have any questions you can get in touch via our live chat or contact us page. Alternatively you can call the office and speak to a member of our team on 01474 700400.