A study by Sterling Research and SmithGeiger for Google found that a whopping 96% of users have encountered a website that is obviously not designed for mobile. This would not have mattered to you if not for the following findings also uncovered by the same study:

1. Responsive Web Design

2. Mobile Internet users are expected to outnumber
desktop users by next year. It is therefore no surprise
that Google is paying close attention to this
development. And so should you. Because if your
website is not yet “mobile responsive,” you may be
turning away prospects who browse your web pages via
smartphones, tablets, or laptops. And frankly, mobile
users are prospects you wouldn’t want to lose.

3. Non-Mobile Ready = Non-Customer Friendly
A study by Sterling Research and SmithGeiger for
Google found that a whopping 96% of users have
encountered a website that is obviously not designed
for mobile. This would not have mattered to you if not
for the following findings also uncovered by the same
study:

4. • 52% of users are unlikely to engage with a company
whose website brought them a bad mobile
experience
• 36% of respondents say a non-mobile-friendly site
wastes users’ time
• 67% of users are more likely to purchase if the site is
mobile friendly

5. To add up to business owners’ growing woes, Internet
research company comScore estimates that 52.4
million Americans now own nearly 58 million tablets.
Another research group, Pew Internet, says 56% of
American adults have a smartphone. Worldwide, there
will be 1.4 billion smartphones by the end of 2013, adds
ABI Research. That’s with a B, billion.

6. To add up to business owners’ growing woes, Internet
research company comScore estimates that 52.4
million Americans now own nearly 58 million tablets.
Another research group, Pew Internet, says 56% of
American adults have a smartphone. Worldwide, there
will be 1.4 billion smartphones by the end of 2013, adds
ABI Research. That’s with a B, billion.

7. Needless to say, Internet users – including your
prospect customers – have been and will be viewing
your website using mobile devices. That’s a major
problem if your site is not designed to load properly on
mobile.

8. Supported, Not Preferred: Dynamic Serving
& Mobile Sites
In total, Google supports three configurations in
serving content for smartphones: mobile responsive,
dynamic serving, and mobile version website. The
search engine prefers the first option. As for the other
two, they are supported but not recommended.

9. Like responsive, dynamic serving uses the same URL
for both desktop and mobile. But unlike responsive, it
serves different HTML and CSS depending on the
device. In this method, you will need to either 1) come
up with a different set of code for mobile or 2) use
JavaScript to change the code. If not carried out
correctly, such as when Google crawlers are not alerted
that the site serves varying or dynamic HTML, this
option can even cause indexing problems.

10. The second supported-but-not-preferred option is
actually creating another website, a mobile version of
the main site. It is often carried out with a different
domain, such as m.example.com, indicating it is
meant for mobile visitors. The creation is the easy part.
Ensuring pages properly redirect to their mobile
equivalent pages is the tough task. Faulty redirects
mean Google won’t be able to find and rank your
mobile pages properly. And oh, now you have two sites
to maintain (desktop and mobile) so you have twice as
much optimization work to do.

11. Supported & Recommended: Responsive
Web Design
And then there’s Google’s preferred method of
servicing mobile users: responsive web design. Of all
three configurations supported by the search giant, it
leans on responsive more because of its many
advantages not just in improving user experience but
also in speeding up web page indexing and ranking.
According to the official Webmaster Central Blog,
here’s what Google has to say when building
smartphone-optimized websites:

12. “Sites that use responsive web design, i.e. sites that
serve all devices on the same set of URLs, with each
URL serving the same HTML to all devices and using
just CSS to change how the page is rendered on the
device. This is Google’s recommended
configuration.”

13. Because the desktop and mobile content are on a
single URL, it is easier for user to find, link back to,
and share that content. It is also easier for Google
algorithms to assign the indexing properties to your
content. “Google can discover your content more
efficiently as we wouldn’t need to crawl a page with the
different Googlebot user agents to retrieve and index
all the content,” the company explains.

14. What Makes a Website Mobile Responsive
In a nutshell, responsive is serving both desktop and
mobile users the same exact HTML, changing only its
appearance via CSS. This means your web pages load
perfectly on all devices, regardless of screen size,
without needing to change the HTML for each device
or to create a separate mobile website.

15. A mobile responsive website has three key features: a
flexible or fluid grid, flexible images, and CSS3 media
queries. These features allow the website to “adapt to
the viewing environment”. The website adjusts for
viewers so they won’t need to scroll in all directions
and zoom in and out whenever browsing via
smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

16. Why You Need to Shift to Responsive Today
Be More Visible Online – The responsive
configuration makes it easier for Google to index pages
since its crawlers will only deal with one set of code.
Since you won’t create a mobile site, you also avert the
possibility of faulty redirects, allowing pages to be
discovered and ranked.

17. Build and Improve Your Brand, Reputation
The Sterling Research and SmithGeiger study also
found that 48% of users are “frustrated and annoyed”
by a non-mobile-friendly site. Being perceived as
“annoying and frustrating” won’t help your brand and
reputation.

18. Capture Desktop and Mobile Targets
Desktop users roam your site effortlessly. But what if
they use a smartphone or a tablet to browse? Some
48% of users think companies that have non-mobile
friendly sites “don’t care” about their business.
Googdbye, mobile user leads and sales.

19. Dominate Your Competition
The same research found that 61% of users will
quickly go to another website if they don’t immediately
find what they need on your mobile site. Keep your site
non-responsive and your competitors will thank you
for the customers you send their way.

20. Save on Development Costs
You need to spend upfront to get a mobile responsive
website but it’s actually more cost-effective in the long
run. It’s cheaper than building a separate mobile site
and then maintaining two websites. It’s cheaper than
losing mobile customers, too.

21. Give Focus to Your Marketing, SEO Efforts
It is hard enough to make your pages rank on the first
page of Google for main keywords. Imagine if you had
twice the number of pages you need to carry out
optimization for. Imagine promoting a doubled
number of URLs. Chaos will ensue.

22. Prepare Your Business for Long-Term
Success
More and more page views are coming from mobile,
and less from desktop. Next year, mobile viewers are
expected to outnumber desktop users. With a
responsive site, you are ready for this long-term shift in
website traffic origin.

23. Ignore Google, Risk Losing Customers
Google is unrelenting when it comes to user
experience, and that’s why it has the largest search
share.
By following Google’s recommendation, you are
providing quality experience to your site visitors,
whether they connect via desktop or mobile.
Remember, they are not just visitors; they can turn
into leads that you can eventually convert into
customers.

24. On the other hand, by ignoring
Google’s recommendation of implementing responsive
web design, you are preventing your site from being
indexed by search engines the best way possible. You
are also effectively sidestepping a crucial advice to
improve your site visitors’ user experience, and
therefore turning away prospect customers. So, do the
right thing for your business: get a mobile responsive
website today.

25. Now to see how you can avail of our free in-depth
consultation… so we can make your website and
business mobile responsive, customer friendly, and
ready for the future.
Telephone:
1300 768 100
Email:
info@redbackwebs.com.au
Or Visit our Website:
http://www.redbackwebs.com.au/