You’ve got your website up and running and as far as you know, you’re receiving plenty of hits.

But when it comes to web development and design maybe you’re not as up-to-date as you could be. Do you understand the importance of responsive web design?

If your answer is no, you’re probably not receiving as many hits as you think.

What is Responsive Web Development and Design?

You know how sometimes you visit your favorite websites on your computer, but other times you visit them on your phone? If those websites are working well and working quickly, most likely their designers have used responsive web development and design.

In a nutshell, responsive design uses only one URL for the mobile and web formats. That doesn’t immediately sound like something to get excited about, but listen:

If you only have one URL for your web-based site and your mobile-based site, your customers have a better experience because the user interface is more streamlined. Also, the Google search optimization on mobile devices tends to favor streamlined interfaces.

In other words, you don’t want a tiny version of your desktop on your cell phone, right? And without responsive design, that’s basically what you get: Buttons that are too small to click, horizontal scrolling, etc.

What’s in it for your customers?

The short answer is that responsive web development and design is just easier to use.

A website that’s easy to navigate on any type of device is typically a website a customer is happy to spend time on. No argument.

Now, whether or not user engagement impacts SEO is debatable, but you should err on the side of caution.

User engagement is measured by bounce rate, time on a page, load time, and pages per session. Responsive web development and design aids in ensuring each of the four is optimal for the customer and for you.

What’s in it for your business?

According to Tech.co, a more effective SEO strategy is in it for you–which means better search engine results, and ultimately more customers.

“SEO experts say that maintaining your one mobile site will be easier with a single pack of hypertext links, allowing SEO teams to focus on expanding your business through effective SEO strategy,” Tech.co writes.

Designrfix.com explains that responsive web design “also takes into consideration factors like screen size, pixel resolution, optimized markup, click versus touch” among other things.

All of those factors lead to better SEO because Google prefers it and that will improve your search ranking.

How far will responsive design go?

It’s hard to answer that question. One innovation that we’ll start seeing in 2017 is that websites will be responsive to the point that they alter the experience for the very old and the very young, rather than appearing as a one size fits all.

The idea is that the website will use metadata to determine a user’s age, then adapt accordingly.

For instance: an elderly user will be assumed to have poor vision so the font size will increase and the color scheme and number of animations and other distractions might decrease; a child’s experience might also include larger font size but will keep the animations and colorful graphics.

Stay on Top of the Game

As with any fast-changing field, you’ll do best to stay on top of the wave rather than get rolled under. If you haven’t already, reconfigure your website to take responsive design into account.

If you need help, click here.

The post The Importance of Responsive Web Development and Design appeared first on Midas Marketing.

How to Make Your Website SEO Friendly

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is perhaps the most effective way of maximizing a business’ competitiveness online. SEO can help with brand enhancement, attracting new customers, creating repeat customers, and driving sales. If you are committed to achieving your full potential, you need to maximize your website’s SEO tactics, and one of the key strategies for ensuring this is by making your website mobile-friendly. 

A mobile-friendly website is one which has been optimized to be viewed on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Non-mobile optimized websites are designed to be viewed on laptops or PCs. As such, mobile devices – courtesy of their small screen sizes – cannot render them properly. Mobile optimization makes a website display perfectly on mobile devices.

7 Ways a Responsive Coding Makes Your Website SEO Friendly

1. Higher Mobile SERP (search engine results page) Rankings

In April 2015, Google announced a change in algorithm which sparked fears of a “mobile-geddon” whereby non-mobile friendly websites would be eliminated from mobile SERPs. Thankfully the mass downgrading of websites didn’t happen but even then, Google’s algorithm now ranks mobile-friendly websites higher in mobile SERPs. Given that more and more people now access the web on their mobile devices, this can have positive benefits for your business.

2. Faster Loading Time

A mobile-friendly website loads faster on mobile devices which enhances its SEO, since loading speed is one of the metrics Google uses to judge a website’s user experience (UX). Websites with a better UX tend to be ranked higher by Google and other search engines – better UX ultimately means higher rankings. 

3. Lower Bounce Rates

One of the measures Google uses to judge a website’s relevance is the bounce rates – a website with a high bounce rate tends to be downgraded while those with a low bounce rate get upgraded.  Websites that aren’t mobile-friendly usually experience a higher bounce rate especially among mobile visitors. This is because their sites don’t display very well on the viewer’s mobile device. A mobile-friendly website has a lower bounce rate which contributes positively towards its SEO.

4. Higher Click Through Rates (CTRs)

In November 2014, Google introduced a “mobile-friendly” label in mobile SERPs  (this label identifies websites which are mobile-friendly). Having such a label can lead to higher CTRs since it guarantees that the website will render properly on the mobile device. A higher CTR means more visitors, which raises your website’s profile among search engines.

5. Higher Repeat Visitations

A mobile-friendly website with great content is more likely to generate repeat visitations from mobile users. Repeat visitations raise your website’s SEO, since search engines tend to rank popular websites higher. 

6. More Social Sharing

Mobile-friendly websites are more likely to be shared, liked and mentioned by mobile users on their social media sites. This is enhances the website’s “social media signals” and helps your SEO because search engines now use social media signals to rank websites. Websites with more signals (i.e. many followers, more shares, greater comments from followers, etc.) are ranked higher than those with few signals. As such, having a mobile-friendly website can enhance your social media signals and thereby improve your SEO. 

7. More Backlinks

Backlinks have always been essential for SEO. Nowadays, websites (especially authority websites) are selective about where they link to and most now consider mobile-friendliness as a criterion for linking because they don’t want to send their visitors to websites whose content they may not be able to view. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly most authority websites may not want to link to it, meaning building backlinks will be difficult for you. However, if your website is mobile-friendly, then getting high quality backlinks will be much easier.

Mobile technology is changing the game, so adjust your website for strong mobile performance and search engine rankings.

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Use This Tips to Learn How to Make Your Website SEO Friendly

We touched on seven ways that having a mobile-friendly website enhances your SEO. The first step is to find out if your website is mobile-friendly. To make it simple, Google has a tool which you can use to find out called the Mobile-Friendly Test, where you can check how mobile-friendly your website is. You can find the tool here.

If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you will eventually have to redesign it. Mobile-friendliness is implemented using what is referred to as a “responsive web design.”

If you are considering making this transition now, and would like a quote on getting started, click here.

The post How to Make Your Website SEO Friendly with Mobile Optimization appeared first on Midas Marketing.

5 Benefits You’ll Enjoy When Working with Responsive Website Design Companies

You’ve probably heard at least a little bit about the idea of a responsive website (if you haven’t, click here). Updating your website might make you want to run into a brick wall, but here are 5 reasons why biting the bullet sooner rather than later will seriously benefit your business.

1) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Recent changes to the major search engine algorithms have allocated better placement in search results to websites that are mobile-friendly. In a world where roughly 60% of all traffic comes from organic search, and conversion rates from these searches are significantly higher than other sources, it’s easy to see why SEO is very important for your business. Building a responsive website is a strong step to achieving a high ranking.

2) Less Headache

If you have a responsive website, you don’t have to worry about maintaining different versions of your website for different screen sizes. Responsive websites automatically adjust to display content properly, no matter if you are on a phone, tablet, or desktop.

3) We’re Trending Mobile

Mobile traffic keeps going higher and higher, and 2014 marked the first year that mobile traffic surpassed desktop traffic as a whole. The trend will likely level out at some point, but mobile is here to stay for the foreseeable future. If your website isn’t responsive, it does not represent your company as innovative and forward-thinking.

4) Peer Pressure

This one might sound funny, but it’s true. Psychology has taught us that over time, luxuries become expectations. As other companies build responsiveness into their web strategy, those who ignore it will be left behind for good. Love it or hate it, a smooth mobile experience is becoming the standard, and not providing that for potential customers could leave them with a very bad taste in their mouth.

5) Social Conversion

Social media is a wonderful, growing tool for businesses to engage directly with their fans and followers. But many business owners often struggle with the ROI monster. It’s great to get likes, but it’s better to get sales. A responsive website means you can actually market your services, online store, etc. to your customers through social media. If you have a responsive website that looks great on a phone, you will have much lower drop-off rates once a Facebook fan clicks that link to buy your latest product.

The post 5 Ways Responsive Website Design Companies Help Your Succeed appeared first on Midas Marketing.

Why Do You Need Responsive Web Design Services?

Responsive web design is a term used to describe web development that is done in a way that considers mobile devices, tablets, laptops and large screens simultaneously. Each web page on a responsive website will automatically adjust to deliver the best viewing experience possible for whatever device the visitor is using. This is accomplished by implementing or hiring responsive web design services.

Responsive Web Design on a Laptop

Here is picture of how our website’s homepage looks on a 13in screen, as well as how it appears on a iPhone 5. You can see that on the iPhone the page realigns our services so that each one is easier to read on a smartphone, rather than keeping the same 3×2 layout as shown on the laptop.

Responsive Web Design on a Mobile Device

To find out if a website is responsive, open it up on a laptop or desktop screen. Move your mouse to the corner of the window and grab it to adjust the window size. As you make the window smaller and smaller you should see the elements of the website adjust to accommodate the new, smaller size of the window. Pretty cool stuff!

Why are responsive web design services important?

Well, rather than typing up a  bunch of brilliant, insightful words, it seems that some simple math can illustrate this point best: Over half of all web browsing is now done through mobile or tablet use. However, less than 20% of websites today are fully responsive. It doesn’t take a calculus professor to notice that a lot of companies are delivering an outdated, hard to read mobile experience to interested visitors.

But why not just have a mobile website in addition to the regular site?

At first, this seemed like the way to go. Companies that could afford it would just create a mobile-friendly version of their website to supplement their current website. However, the responsive web design movement has started catching on for small businesses especially, since it’s a lot easier and cost effective to maintain one site instead of two. Not to mention the start-up cost of creating a new site just for mobile users. Brand integrity and overall web experience is much more consistent with a responsive website, unless you happen to have unlimited marketing resources to develop multiple high-end, custom websites within your company.

Hopefully this article has been helpful to you as you consider responsive web design services. If you’re thinking of getting up to speed with a responsive website, that’s something that we implement with every website we create. A quick click below can get that process started.

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