Urgent, for all businesses that currently have websites. “Starting April 21, we [Google] will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal”.
I’ve written previously, about the requirement for websites, these days, to be designed to be responsive. That is to automatically adapt to fit screens of all sizes. That requirement is about to become critical following this latest pronouncement from Google.
More and more people are viewing websites on handheld devices such as tablet computers and smart phones, which have smaller sized screens than traditional desktop and laptop computers. When viewed on these smaller screens, websites designed with fixed widths usually appear miniaturized and the only way to see them is to expand them by pinch sizing. This causes the window to expand beyond the screen boundary forcing the viewer to scroll left and right in order to see the entire page.
Responsive websites are designed to reconfigure themselves to fit the screen, no matter what width the screen is. This eliminates all the resizing and scrolling.
Responsive Web Design
Is an approach where the design and development of a website responds to the user’s behaviour and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. As the user switches from their laptop to iPad, the website automatically switches to take account of screen resolution and image size. In other words, the website has the technology to automatically respond to the user’s preferences. This eliminates the need for a different design and development for each new gadget on the market.
The requirement to be responsive has now been given additional urgency because Google has announced that, starting on the 21st April 2015, it is rolling out changes to its ranking algorithms to boost the ranking of responsive sites when searched on mobile devices at the expense of non-mobile devices.
Google Announcement
Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.
What does it take to make a website responsive? It depends on the specific site, but in some cases it’s simply a matter of slotting existing images and content into a new framework.
All the websites that Day 10 develops now are responsive. We have already converted a number of sites for existing clients. We could convert yours even if you’re not an existing customer of ours and your site was developed by some other company. Get in touch and we’ll give you a quote.
You may be surprised how inexpensive it can be!
Free, No-obligation Quotation
Please complete the form below and we will provide a quote for converting your website design to be responsive.
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Previous Articles to Reference
3 Key Design Features That Every Website Should Have in 2015
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