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3 Reasons Responsive Web Design is essential to your SEO

By Brian Bennett, Thursday, 14th March 2013 | 0 comments
Filed under: UX/Design, Web Development, SEO, General News, Responsive Design.

Responsive Web Design is great for your SEO.

In this edition of our blog we're going to talk to you about why getting or having a Responsive Web Design can benefit your sites rankings in Google.

1. Google recommends you have one

Google logoGoogle looks at each site on the net and ranks them through their complicated algorithms. If you have a site that is not mobile friendly you will score worse than a site that is.
 
In 2013 Google will rank websites that are responsively designed with a big +1, realistically giving them bonus marks to help their SEO and Google ranking score. Google sees responsive web design as best practice and giving their customers an enhanced user-experience when they are on your site is paramount to their business. We all know how important it is to follows their guidelines, we explain in our blog "5 things that Google looks for" that user-experience is one of the key things that Google wants and makes you on. With a 93% of Irish* people using Google as their preferred search engine we need to make sure that we follow their advice.

2. One site = multiple devices

SmartphoneIt couldn't be simpler! Your website will automatically resize itself to whatever device your site is being accessed from; Desktop, Laptop, Tablet or Smartphone. You can't control if someone is accessing your website from and iPhone or a Laptop, but you can sure make their user-experience is as simple as possible no matter how they come to your website.
 
Google will give you some credit if you have a mobile website, but if you have a responsive web design they will really see this as a positive. The whole experience and flow will add to that Google ranking we all crave. This about it the more you give your customers the more you are actually giving Google to score you on. Give the people what they want; a good looking website with content that is easily accessible.
 
Don't let the persons device determine why they don't call you! If they can navigate your site easily they should be more likely to contact you.

3. Same content - Same site

Content ThumbnailWith a responsive web design your content is your content. I know that sounds a little confusing but it means that no matter how your site is accessed it's the same content no matter what. If you had a mobile site you would have two sets of content, sometimes even duplicating it - this is terrible when it comes to Google. Duplicate content is a big no, no when it comes to any website. 

Having a responsive web design that you can update once and it’s done is a dream come true for most businesses. It eliminates the pressure and time constraints of updating multiple sites. Your SEO will be the same on every device too.

The other great thing about a responsive website are your campaigns; you will no longer need one for mobile and one for desktop; therefore everything becomes easier to track in Google Analytics. When things are easier to track it is easier for you to plan how you set up your SEO strategy for each page.

To sum it up

With between 25% - 30% of traffic reportedly coming through mobile devices (and this number is on the rise every month) it is becoming more and more essential to get your website a responsive web design in 2013.

If you're interested in a free website assessment or discussing responsive web design please feel free to contact us on 01 2990655 or sales@webtrade.ie

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