Today, mobile technology is expanding rapidly.  People have smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and a variety of other mobile devices of all shapes and sizes to connect to the internet.  People are using their mobile devices more than they are on the traditional desktop PC.  The mobile users market is a large market that would be lost if your company didn’t stay up-to-date with today’s consumers. That’s why it is important to have a responsive and mobile-friendly website to cater to the billions of mobile users in the world today.  Most developers when creating new websites are now adopting a "mobile first" approach to website development.  Google also will rank your website as to whether it is mobile friendly or not.

What is a responsive website?

A responsive website is a website that adapts its text, images, and figures to fit the device screen of the user. This makes it easy to see all the necessary information on one screen with minimal scrolling and zooming. If your website isn't responsive, it will be frustrating for the user to read as they will have to enlarge small text or have to scroll horizontally to read your text.

Detailed coding is required to make a website responsive to different screen sizes. Without responsive coding your website will either display as it does on a desktop-sized screen, which will be really tiny and difficult to read or the layout will be all jumbled up as it tries to fit everything on the smaller screen.

Does having a responsive website make it mobile friendly automatically?

The answer to this question is no, not necessarily.  There are other features that need to be taken into consideration to make a website truly mobile friendly and to give the best browsing experience to the user.   A responsive website only adjusts the size and text and to fit the screen.  In order to make your site mobile friendly, here are some of the things your site will need.

As smaller devices are Touch devices, there needs to be adequate spacing between buttons and links so that users can navigate your site easily.

• Graphic content for navigation between pages

• User-friendly layouts to make access easy for mobile users.

• Mobile versions of forms for contacts and subscriptions

• Quick and easy page navigation

• Proper spacing between links so that users can accurately click on the one they want

These features can all be integrated as part of the responsive design.

Why Your Website Should be Responsive and Mobile Friendly

1. More People are Using Mobile Devices

Billions of people, worldwide are using mobile devices everyday.  People are not only using for work, but are using them during their leisure time.  People are more likely to search the internet from a mobile device than they are from a desktop.  

2. Customers Shop from Their Phones and Tablets

As people use their phones much more than their desktop they are also more like to shop on their phones and tablets than on their desktop PCs.   The online retail market has grown massively in the last few years and has overtaken the high street.  
This is something that any serious business cannot afford to ignore.  If your website is not responsive and mobile friendly, you are missing out on a huge amount of potential sales.

3. Social Media is a Valuable Asset

Social media is a huge platform for promoting your business and offers the opportunity for customers to post reviews about your company.  A bad review for a non user friendly site, is not something you want.

4. It's great for SEO

A responsive and mobile-friendly website can greatly improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) ranking. This is because Google gives incentives to positive user experience on the web.

Google  has a separate algorithm for mobile websites that focuses bounce rate and click-back times.  So if your website isn't mobile friendly and responsive, don't expect it to show up high in the google rankings.  You will be losing customers and you risk Google penalising your website.

5. A Better User Experience

Having a responsive and mobile-friendly website will ensure an all-around better user experience for your customers. You will be delivering your services to them in a way that fits with their lifestyle and their needs.

Customers won’t become frustrated with your awkward website that doesn’t fit properly on their phone and spoils their overall experience.

Contact Us

Contact Us at Woodford Web Solutions today to discuss how we can help turn your website into a mobile friendly responsive website.   You can contact us via this blog or via one of the contact methods on our website.