Last year, 52% of internet traffic came from mobile devices (compared to 50% in 2018). We’ve seen even higher percentages of mobile traffic (over 75%) from our Web Lakeland customer sites across the United States. In every state and every industry, mobile traffic is becoming more and more common.
The implication is clear: you have to consider how your website will look on a smartphone.
What does “responsive website” mean?
Responsive websites are designed so that the layout of the site changes depending on the screen size of the device it’s shown on.
Non-responsive websites stay the same size regardless of the device used to access them. You’ve probably experienced something like this before browsing the internet. Have you ever seen a site that forced you to scroll horizontally on your smartphone in order to see the entire page?
If you found that experience frustrating, I can guarantee your own website visitors are in the same boat. Responsive web design is particularly important because users have come to expect sites that look great and perform well on every device. If you fail to deliver on that basic expectation, you’re going to drive away customers.
A mobile friendly website is similar to a mobile responsive website, but takes it a step further. With mobile friendly website development, every aspect of your site is optimized to display easily on a smartphone.
You can get a good idea of how well your site performs on mobile just by opening it up on your smart phone. Alternatively, you can use a mobile friendly website test. Google has a free one available for anyone to use. Just enter your website URL to find out if your site is mobile friendly.
Every Web Lakeland website is built from the ground-up to be mobile responsive and function perfectly on every device. Each site looks clean and functions well because we design around your content rather than trying to force your content into a template.
Specifically, our technology auto-detects the screen resolution of a visitor’s device. In the instants before your page loads, it automatically adjusts the sizes and fonts of elements to be displayed professionally without sacrificing user experience.
It’s actually common for us to see our clients’ mobile performance outshine their desktop performance – they’ll get more leads and calls from mobile visitors.
Here are a few examples of Web Lakeland client sites that look just as amazing on a smartphone as they do on a desktop.
A word of warning: mobile browsers do update, and if your site is built on shaky foundations, it may not hold up well overtime. Some future-proofing is critical here. When we develop sites, we use state of the art technology that is supported, hosted, and maintained at all times (and updates are included in all plans).
So if iOS, Android, or large browsers like Chrome or Firefox update, your {web Lakeland} site will still be mobile-responsive. No matter how the technology progresses.
Benefits of Mobile Responsive Design
Mobile Friendly Website Design Is A Better User Experience
A mobile responsive website provides a better overall experience for smartphone and tablet users.
For example, look at our Web Lakeland website (which is mobile responsive). When you access the homepage from a desktop computer, you can see all of the text clearly.
When you access the same page from a mobile device, the content shifts so that you can still see the same details.
If our site weren’t mobile responsive, viewing the site on a smartphone would only show a very small part of the screen. This doesn’t communicate any of the important information, as well as creates a frustrating experience for users. This is an example of what you would see if the website was not mobile responsive.
Here’s another example of a user experience designed for smartphones.
Elite Ballroom is another client of ours who received a custom website redesign. Their primary call to action on their home page directs visitors to sign up for a free intro lesson.
To keep the experience seamless on a mobile device, the homepage content automatically resizes itself so that all of the key information is clearly visible on a phone screen.
On desktop, the “SCHEDULE FREE ORIENTATION” button appears at the top right of the page, where it’s likely to catch a visitor’s eye.
When viewed on a mobile device, the layout of the top bar changes. Instead of squishing everything down so that the buttons are too small to tap easily, the mobile responsive design focuses on the most important elements.
Here, the “SCHEDULE FREE CONSULTATION” button is moved to the center of the top area. Visitors can clearly read the button, and it’s positioned to draw their attention.
The menu has also been collapsed into an icon with three lines. Tapping this will expand the menu options into a vertical list, which is easier to navigate on a smartphone than a horizontal menu.
Another advantage of our mobile design is our one tap call buttons. If a visitor on a smartphone taps the phone number in the upper left corner, it will automatically start a call from the phone app. This streamlines the process for potential customers to contact you, making it easier to collect leads from your website.
Mobile Responsive Website Design Will Improve Your Rankings
Mobile responsive design isn’t just good user experience, it’s good for search engine optimization as well. A mobile responsive website can improve your SEO in several ways.
First of all, Google and other search engines are looking to provide the best experience they can to their users. Remember, Google makes money when you’re searching through them and clicking on ads, so they’re going to do everything possible to ensure you stick around.
If your website provides a terrible experience, Google will ultimately be less likely to rank it at the top of search results.
Of course, Google isn’t a person and can’t look at your website to gauge the experience. Instead, Google relies on signals it can measure.
A low bounce rate (the percentage of users who land on and immediately leave your site) and a high time on page signal to Google your site is providing a good experience. And as you can imagine, a good layout on any device goes a long way to improving both of these.
Here’s analytics data from [CLIENT NAME], a Web Lakeland client who saw a strong improvement in their bounce rate after their website redesign.
We can dig into this data a bit deeper to see how the bounce rate was on both the mobile and desktop versions of the site. As you can see, their bounce rate on mobile was a particular issue.
When we redesigned their site, we focused on [ADD 3 THINGS] to improve the experience on mobile devices, which dropped the bounce rate to [NEW BOUNCE RATE]
In addition, Google and other search engines are literally prioritizing mobile responsive websites. They do this through mobile-first indexing. In other words, when the search robots for these engines browse your site, they’re primarily looking at the mobile version.
If you have an entirely separate mobile version of your site with broken links or other issues, it will negatively affect your rankings. With mobile responsive development, you only have to worry about one version of your site.
Mobile Friendly Responsive Web Development from Web Lakeland
Because all Web Lakeland sites are custom built from the ground up, every one of our custom website designs is fully mobile responsive. We extensively test every site in order to make sure your visitors get the same great experience no matter what device they’re using.
If you need a customized website for your business, register today to get a free mockup.
Michael is the Founder and CEO of {web Lakeland}. He brings years of experience in web development and cybersecurity together to help small to midsize businesses redesign their websites into beautifully designed, lead-generating machines. A nerd at heart, you can find him spending his time outside the office tackling home improvement projects or watching superhero movies with his nephews.
Disclaimer: This content is based on internal case studies and collected data across our clients. Web Lakeland does not guarantee any results from using this content and it is for educational purposes only.
