In today’s competitive digital landscape, responsive web design isn’t a luxury, it’s a downright necessity. Mobile has emerged as a critical component for web browsing and digital commerce, with over 60% of queries within search engines coming from mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones.
Yet despite this glaring trend, many brands are failing to deliver a user-friendly mobile experience for their visitors. A recent study released by LogMeIn, in conjunction with research firm Vanson Bourne, found that an abysmal 52% were satisfied with the experience they had when engaging with a business on mobile. Even more alarming, around 91% said it would be unlikely that they would do business again with a brand delivering a bad mobile experience, and a further 38% of those would write a negative review online about it or tell a friend.
Responsive web design, which once was an innovative design tactic, has now become a standard among web designers and web design platforms alike. With Google’s recent move to a “mobile first” index, responsive design could never be as important for SEO as it is today.
According to a Study Conducted by GOOGLE:
- 61% of users would abandon the site right away if it wasn’t mobile optimized
- 50% of users said that even if they liked a brand they would use them less frequently if the mobile experience was poor
- 36% feel they “wasted their time” if a site isn’t mobile friendly
- 48% said if the site didn’t work well on their tablets or smart phones, it made them feel like the brand did not care about its reputation, company or customers
With Google’s push for the best user experience possible, failing to implement a responsive web design is a surefire way to:
- Increase negative reviews online
- Decrease web traffic
- Increase bounce rates
- Lose sales
- Lose repeat customers
- And more…
All of which play a critical role in today’s SEO algorithms. With so much on the line, you simply can’t afford to ignore mobile optimization.
Top 5 SEO benefits of Responsive Web Design
1. Mobile First
Responsive web design has become just as important a priority as search engine optimization, and quality content. As of April 2018, Google has implemented the use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal and has been forthright with their move to a “mobile first” index. This means that if your site is NOT optimized for mobile as a priority, all things being equal, the competitor’s site that is, will likely outrank you in their index.
2. Eliminate Duplicate Content
You may or may not be guilty of this, but many companies have been utilizing both a desktop version of a website, and a mobile version. At times this lead to duplicate content across the web. Remember, to Google bots, any distinct URL is considered a unique page/site.
Example:
1. yourcompany.com
2. m.yourcompany.com
In the above case you’ll notice one version of the site is for “desktop” and the other for “mobile”. Google’s crawlers do not understand that those are the same brand, and as such you may be hit with duplicate content penalties unless other measures are taken. Working from a “mobile first” perspective allows you to consolidate your content to a single unique URL.
3. Lower Bounce Rate
User behavior and visitor statistics on your pages matter. Remember, Google’s goal is to make sure sites providing the best user experience possible, for each given search query, rank the highest.
Indicators of a poor experience may include:
- High bounce rates
- Low time spent on page / site
- Low number of page views
- Low number of clicks
Based on the aforementioned Google study, we know that users will NOT stay on, nor use your site, to complete their search objective if it offers up a poor mobile experience. One of the core metrics this will affect is the bounce rate (i.e. how fast visitors leave your site after determining it’s not what they want).
The quicker they leave your website, the higher the bounce rate. This is a metric search engines pay attention to, especially Google. Search engines correlate this metric with how relevant or irrelevant your content is for visitors, as well as its quality.
A properly optimized mobile site will be intuitive, engaging and will present and provide information in an easy to read and digestway, leading to increased interactions and time spent on pages.
4. Faster Loading Speeds
According to Hubspot (and a number of other studies), if your site is taking more than three seconds to load, you could be losing anywhere from 40-50% of your visitors. Yet another study by Kissmetrics shows that around 79% of visitors dissatisfied with your site’s performance (read “site speed”) will be less likely to visit again.
Optimizing page load speeds has a well-documented linear impact on the customer’s perceived positive experience on your site. Not only that, Google has been very public with the fact that load speed is a ranking signal in their algorithms.
As a business owner, you’ll definitely want to make sure your website is mobile-friendly and responsive. And remember, just because your site loads well on desktop does NOT mean it will do the same on a 3G mobile device in the suburbs or smaller cities and towns.
5. User Experience
When you take into consideration the visitors and their expectation of experience of a webpage, the user experience is, and should be, a priority over fancy designs and UI structures.
Ensuring the user experience is a priority comes down to structure, navigation, mobile friendliness and ease of access. Responsive web design makes your site mobile-friendly,and prioritizes both readability and navigation for your visitors.
Google recognizes usability by looking into a few key metrics such as the time spent on a webpage. While no one is privy to the exact weighting of such performance indicators in the algorithms, they most certainly play a role in how your site ranks. User experience, and user interface, should be taken as seriously asother traditional on and off-page SEO efforts.
As business owners, web masters, developers and designers, it is our duty and obligation to help make the web a better place to experience. With the rapid growth in mobile devices and use, a primary part of that responsibility lays with improving upon and implementing mobile-friendly responsive designs and architecture.
While the focus should always be on human experience vs machines, it is important to understand that many of the benefits coming from a better user experience will also have a positive impact on search engine positioning and visibility.
Planning goes a long way when optimizing for user experience on mobile.Craft out your structure, links, content, and media ahead of time. For each, address their respective impact on everything from bounce rate, to SEO and user experience. By doing so, you will begin to establish a strong responsive foundation from which to continually build and improve upon as necessary.
This post has been written by our Guest Author “Benjamin J Church” who is an SEO expert and the founder of Tiny Digital. He works with clients in competitive markets around the world to help them reach their ideal customers online and writes from his knowledge and experience. He can often be found playing the guitar and it was music that ultimately took him on the path to digital marketing.
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