With all the mobile devices accessing the web today (about 30% of web traffic come from mobile devices), it’s become mandatory to have a website that fits all screens. This can be accomplished by having a separate website for mobile; but as we’ll see in this article, this approach has many downsides. In 2012, Responsive Web Design (RWD) manifested itself as the best approach for mobile design. Now, two years later RWD is firmly cemented as the mobile design standard. But there are also many SEO benefits that come from using RWD. In this article we’ll take a look at the SEO benefits of responsive web design.
Google Works With RWD
Google is the top dog when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), so we need to pay attention to what Google likes and works with. It is a good thing for RWD users that Google actually promotes and rewards responsive web design and ranks mobile optimized websites higher in searches that are made from a mobile device. This is particularly effective for searches using local keywords such as “Charlotte, NC widget maker”.
Why Not Have A Mobile Site?
Creating an entirely different website for mobile users has some benefits, but the SEO concerns outweigh them. If you were to create a mobile website completely separate from your desktop site, the mobile site would have to start from scratch when it comes to authority (link popularity). Redesigning your website with RWD does not break outside websites linking to your content, and therefore, preserves your current SEO ranking.
RWD Reduces Bounce Rates
Even if your website ranks high in search results, you still have to consider bounce rates. If your website doesn’t respond to mobile users, they will take one look at your site and leave without ever clicking anything. That means you’re losing a large percentage (30% or more) of your potential customers. Responsive Web Design will combat this by providing the same content as your desktop version, but formatted properly for mobile devices.
Better User Experience
User experience is what websites are all about; we know content is king, but who is the content for? It’s for the user/visitor and as such should be formatted and designed for your target audience. RWD places a huge emphasis on user experience across a wide range of devices. Since user experience is a huge ranking feature, it makes sense that Google supports Responsive Web Design.
Conclusion
Mobile users make up a large percentage of web activity. It’s not an option anymore: your website MUST cater to them or you will risk becoming obsolete. While using a separate website for mobile may seem like a good idea at first, there are many drawbacks to it that RWD doesn’t have. Along with all the SEO benefits, Responsive Web Design also focuses on a good user experience – it’s a win win situation.
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