Responsive design & Usability & SEO

What is a Responsive Website?

A responsive website is one that adjusts itself on different devices, eg: a mobile phone or tablet computer. It must be legible and easy to use on every device.

Most of you probably already know that having a responsive website is a must. Your brand must be well represented on all platforms for your site (and company) to be taken seriously. Maybe even more important is the following fact: Google will penalize your website’s placement within the search results if your site isn’t responsive. Google made having a mobile version of the website part of its world-famous algorithm in April 2015. Your website should appear perfectly on tablets, laptops, and any size desktop or phone.

What is Usability?

Usability is the practice of making sure website visitors know what is what. A link needs to look like a link. You should never have main navigation that is difficult to select, especially on a mobile device. The text needs to be readable on any device. You should just know what to do on a website without thinking. This is the state of affairs if the usability is correct.

Why this matters for SEO

The better your responsive design and usability the more people will not only use but also refer others to your website. The more visitors that come to your site is a signal to Google that your site has authority and will result in a higher ranking.

Think about the user side of the equation: mobile device usage is accelerating, and mobile Google searches are now over 60% of all searches. More emphasis must be placed on having a killer mobile presence.

Mobile phones are so important at this time, the best practice in Responsive Design today is to do something called “mobile-first”. This means creating a design that works on the mobile phone, then design up from there. This ensures that the mobile design is given a high priority for a company’s web presence. However, just having Responsive Design or using the mobile-first design method doesn’t guarantee success in the competitive space which is the web? The answer is emphatically “no”.

Usability (or User Experience or UX) is an area that has been taken a bit more seriously in the past few years. There is still a great way to go before companies ‘get religion’ about the importance of usability.

A beautiful responsive design does not necessarily mean a usable one. You have a chance, right now, to shine in the mobile space. You can rise above your competitors by having a great and usable design. Be customer-focused and remember that your website, whether on the desktop screen or on a mobile device, isn’t for you. The website is for your customer (or potential customer) and must be attractive, informative, easy-to-use, fast and intuitive.

A great mobile design must include:

1. Clear and obvious navigation
2. A font size that is easy to read on all devices. That is use correct responsive code (this means so-called “media-queries”).
3. Keeping each page uncluttered, not crowded.
4. Make sure it is easy to ‘click on’ links.

Good luck with your responsive webbsite.