With the ascent of mobile device users, and Google’s preference for mobile responsive website design,
your website should be mobile-device-friendly in order to satisfy your mobile site visitor as well as Google’s initiative for mobile-first indexing.
Trust me – your potential clients prefer a simple, pleasant, user-friendly experience, rather than one that forces them to inconveniently or laboriously hunt, peck, or zoom in order to learn more about your products, services or expertise. Don’t make them work for it.
Why Your Site Needs to Be Mobile Responsive
A typical scenario with clients seeking improvements to online marketing strategies involves a website audit.
If the audit indicates the client’s site is not mobile responsive, I explain the need to make it so. There are several reasons for making this recommendation, including:
- satisfying the increasing number of mobile-using site visitors
- preventing potential clients from abandoning their non-responsive site, and seeking out a competitor’s website
- Google and its preference for a site’s mobile experience
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Mobile Friendly vs Mobile Responsive – What’s the Difference?
Quite often in this scenario, the customer will indicate their site is already mobile responsive. Herein lies the difference:
a site that is mobile friendly is not the same as mobile responsive.
If you’re not already doing head-spins, stay with me.
A mobile friendly site may display on a mobile device, but not properly – meaning it is not optimized to respond to, say, a tablet or phone. And therefore it won’t satisfy your mobile-using customers, nor will it satisfy Google.
Google likes websites that care about the mobile experience.
The terms mobile friendly and mobile responsive have been used interchangeably, but in fact, they represent very different website experiences.
Think of a mobile friendly website as the older, lazier predecessor to the hip and happening mobile responsive website.
A mobile friendly design will display on a mobile device, but the content is fixed no matter what the device or viewport size, and the site visitor is forced to pinch, zoom, and sometimes scroll left or right to effectively see the content.
A mobile responsive website, on the other hand, does just that – it responds according to the user’s device and screen size, presenting content that adjusts gracefully to the viewport, resulting in a much more user-friendly experience for the site visitor. This is optimum not just for your customers, but for Google.
Mobile friendly sites make the entire site fit on the screen—so you get to waste your time pinching and zooming. Responsive sites create a high quality user experience on all devices. A mobile friendly website “functions” on any device, but it appears the same way on that device as it would on a computer.
Responsive websites adjust to the pixel-width of the screen upon which they are being viewed, providing the same level of user experience on every device and preserving all content necessary to maintaining such user experience.
In even simpler terms—responsive websites are the only website format that should be taken seriously on the internet.
So unlike mobile friendly websites, responsive sites will never have users zooming, squinting (and probably cursing).”
– SWEOR
How Do I Know If My Website Is Responsive?
If you’re not sure whether or not your site is mobile responsive, try these tools to test your website for responsive design.
Am I Responsive
This free online tool will grab a screenshot based on your website address, and within seconds show you how your site displays on multiple devices. It will also allow you to interact with the content on each device to further test display and functionality.
Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test
Google’s testing agent will fetch and analyze your website and produce a report that indicates if you need to optimize your site for mobile devices.
Is It Really That Important To Have A Mobile Responsive Website?
It’s not so much important to have a responsive website – it’s critical.
Trust me – your potential clients prefer a simple, pleasant, and user-friendly experience, rather than one that forces them to inconveniently or laboriously hunt, peck, or zoom in order to learn more about your products, services or expertise. Don’t make them work for it.
Given the increasing number of mobile device users, you could easily be losing those clients to competitors who have easily navigable websites.
And wouldn’t you want Google to give some preference (and some love) to your responsive site?
Your potential clients prefer a simple, pleasant, and user-friendly experience, rather than one that forces them to inconveniently or laboriously hunt, peck, or zoom in order to learn more about your products, services or expertise. Don’t make them work for it.
Don’t lose sight of some critical elements:
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- your potential client’s online experience is how they initially engage with you and your business; make it simple and easy for them to get to know you
- your competitors’ online presence may be better than yours, so if yours is not done well, those potential clients will abandon your site and seek out your competitors
- your website should be configured to perform well in search engines and customer searches, in accordance with current standards
Your potential client’s online experience is how they initially engage with you and your business; make it simple and easy for them to get to know you.
How Do I Get Started With A Responsive Website?
Fat Cat Design can conduct a free website audit and advise you of any areas where the site may need improvement. Depending upon your existing website, it may be less complicated than you think to make your website responsive-compliant.
Get a Free Website Review
If you’re struggling with getting your website to convert to sales, Fat Cat Design can provide you with a complimentary 30-minute website review and audit.
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