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Is Your Website Mobile Friendly? If Not, Consider Responsive Design.

Posted by Christine B. Whittemore on Apr 29, 2015 8:30:00 AM

This is a 5 minute read.

Responsive-Website-mobile-friendlyHow mobile friendly is your website? Have you tried to Google yourself from a mobile device?  If you didn't like what you saw, it may be time to consider responsive design for your website.

Why Bother With Being Mobile Friendly?

Perhaps you've not thought much about mobile devices and your website. If you haven't, you need to since, as of 4/21/15, Google has implemented a search algorithm change that preferentially supports mobile friendly websites. (Also see Google’s “Mobilegeddon” is on its way.)

You may not think this is relevant to your business. After all, who would search from a mobile device for the solutions you offer...

Well, possibly more people than you think.

That's why you want to check out Google Analytics and review what device people are using to access your website and how that has changed over time. I guarantee you'll notice mobile traffic. 

Let's say you are surprised at how many people are accessing your site via mobile device, then what? (And, if you aren't, make a point to monitor this over time. The expectation is that mobile traffic will continue to increase over time.)

Well, you want to check whether your site is indeed mobile friendly. You can do so using Google's Mobile-Friendly Testing Site to check how critical pages on your site perform. It will quickly assess your mobile readiness and detail any issues.

If you're lucky and have been planning ahead, you've already ensured that your website is mobile friendly and built using Responsive Design.

What is Responsive Design?

Responsive website design means that you don't have to create a separate mobile site. Instead, you have a website that adapts to whichever viewing environment visitors are coming from.

Whether on a desktop, a tablet or a mobile device, the content stays the same while the modules rearrange to make for an ideal viewing experience. This matters for your web pages, your landing pages and your blog.

Here are examples of responsive design sites:

How do you make your site mobile friendly with Responsive Design?

Depending on what type content management system (CMS) your website uses and when you last updated your site, you may need to consider a website redesign.

If that's the case, select a responsive design template for your website. You can do so on WordPress, Magento and other similar solutions, as well as using the HubSpot Content Optimization System. That's what my site is built on. (See What Goes Into An Inbound Website Redesign?)

Why should you care about Responsive Design?

Other than not wanting to get dissed in a mobile search, you should care because of your website visitors and prospective customers. You should want to create for them an ideal user experience regardless of the device they use.

  • One that isn't about having to expand the screen view to be able to read the words on the screen.
  • Or one that forces you to link multiple times to get to the information that's important. Much easier to scroll than to have to wait for the page to load.

In fact, you should be thinking one step further than responsive design to context marketing.

When visitors come to you via mobile device (notice that I'm not saying 'if'), they will be in a different frame of mind than when they visit via their tablet or desktop. If you can understand that frame of mind or context, you can further tailor their experience so as to present them with just the right content.

>> See Consider Contextual Marketing To Be More Relevant To Visitors.

You can apply that same mindset to your Adwords campaigns when you specify mobile ads...

Back to your website. Try Googling your site on your mobile device. Do you show up? How easy is it to explore your site? Can you already imagine how to make the experience more relevant as well as mobile-friendly? That's what's behind #MobileGeddon.

Here are a few additional resources:

 Now, go be your own customer and see what you discover. And let me know how it goes. 

Download Website Redesign Guide for Simplified Instructions  

Topics: website redesign

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