Browsing through the web on a mobile phone has become a daily habit for most people. When you’re on the train or just talking to people and want to find out about a topic, share a news story you read before, refer to a movie or actor, or just convert metrics or translate while you’re in a different country. Mobile traffic makes up 57% of all the web traffic and the trends will increase every year.
Because we use our phones and other mobile devices so much these days, it is also important for marketers to see the trend and have responsive websites that will respond to the width of the viewport. At this point, any company that has been around for a while or has the right kind of management, should have this. Even Google penalizes sites that don’t have a responsive design. If you’re site looks horrible on mobile and a lot of people click on your site and leave right away because of the design, the bounce rate goes higher and higher and tells Google that you’re site is not helpful for customers.
And it is not only being responsive that hurts you, but also this July Google changed it’s algorithm to also pay attention to loading speeds. Having the right code can help, but it is also important that images and other designs aren’t too big to load quickly. You can compress images before you upload them or add a plugin that will do it for you. Also, to help with speed, you can utilize Google’s AMP.
These changes are great for consumers as the content they find while searching, is going to give them a good experience and valuable content. For small and new companies on the other hand, it can be a struggle or at least more difficult to understand what they need to focus on and change. However, Google still values sites that provide high value information and it still is one of the most important things you need to do for your business. If your site is extremely mobile friendly but your content isn’t great, it won’t work for you in the long run.
Google actually pays attention to words but also phrases (possible long tail keywords you want to rank for anyways) you use when talking about a specific topic. The more of the phrases that it considers relevant, the higher value you give in it’s eyes. That is why often the first spot on Google for a keyword is the longest article and the further down the list you go the shorter the articles. Again, of course just babbling on about random things won’t help, it has to be relevant.
If you don’t have the money to hire a developer or knowledge to do it yourself, there are easy templates for a lot of different website types that are already responsive. Personally, I have used Themeforest in the past and they have a wide variety. Often there are different styles in each theme and they also offer good support for set up and any questions you have in the beginning. Demos can help figuring out how you want the theme to look for you and options you have and you can even import them and just change everything from there.
Just remember that Millennials and generation Z are going to be the new majority of consumers in no time. Millennials use 4.5 devices on average to connect with brands, which tells you that likely only one of those is a Laptop or PC. To establish authority in your industry you should tailor a well designed message to each of the devices and platforms that your target audience is going to connect with your brand. And of course everyone nowadays searches for a company or product before buying it.
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