With the increasing adoption of smartphones and tablets all across the globe, demand for multiple device compatible websites has reached its peak. A responsive Web design not only maintains and normalizes the same look and feel for a website irrespective of devices, it also take care of factors such as click versus touch, screen size, pixel resolution, support for Adobe's Flash technology, optimized mark-up and several others. The formation of layout, subsequent coding and the final visual presentation is done in such a way that the responsive development provides the optimal viewing experience to any viewer for any website in any device. But, not only a responsive Web design enhances the viewing experience but it also takes care of SEO, which is the central element of any digital marketing strategy.
The following blog focuses on the SEO benefits of a responsive Web design and establishes why it is only logical to go for an SEO-enhancing responsive Web design in these days when mobile searches firmly preside over desktop Internet searches.
It's what Google demands
There is no doubt about the fact that Google is the most effective and useful search engine of the lot and in terms of customer or user preference it holds the undisputed no 1 position. Now as the proverb goes 'if you are in Rome, do as the Romans do' you also need to abide by the regulations set up by Google. As the effectiveness of the SEO that you have implemented depends largely on your search engine, there is no point in going against the wish of the search engine itself. Google, in no ambiguous terms, always clearly say that the configuration that they recommend should mandatorily be that of a responsive design. So don't hesitate and make your Web a responsive one as per Google recommendations.
No risk of duplicity
If you are not making a consolidated responsive design that necessarily mean that you are developing two different sites for two different mediums, one for website and one for mobile. Doing this means that on Internet you are releasing duplicate content for the same product. Now running same pages twice for different setups is not an easy thing to do, neither it is advisable as it inherently possesses the risk of uploading a wrong version at some point of time or updating one version without doing the same for the other, leading to a mismatch.
Links built are undoubtedly stronger
As we have already discussed, in case of a responsive Web design the URL for each page is a unique entity. Therefore the link which guides you to the master site also leads you to the mobile site. Absence of multiple URLs for the same page helps in non-dilution of page rank and the back-end profile for both mobile and desktop remains the same making it stronger and user effective.
Reduction in bounce rate
Quite often it happens that you open a website and that does not work proper in a sense that it requires unending horizontal scrolling with lots of minuscule copies coming within. This happens due to the bounce rate. If the customer engagement features of your website are not proper and users are leaving your page after a few clicks then the Big G or Google as we know him is going to decrease your rating due to an increased bounce rate. Reduction of your rating means that you will go down in appearance preference and this will reduce the traffic of potential customers in your site. Now a responsive design helps to reduce bounce rate as bounce rate increases due to opening pages in non targeted viewership medium and responsive design nips that possibility in the bud. A responsive design will rearrange it as per the medium and will cause no horizontal scrolling and eventually your ratings may go up in Google's list and you will get the maximum effectiveness out of your SEO.
Reduces time to get a page loaded
The average time required by a mobile page to get loaded is over 7 seconds, whereas Google requires it to come down ideally to 1 second. As a responsive design does not require a redirection of queries to reach a certain URL, because of its unique URL system,the time for one mobile page to get loaded in this scenario can be significantly less. Therefore it is evident that a responsive design means less loading time and, possibly, increased SEO.
Improve mobile search rankings
This is another case where the preference of Google comes into play. Mobile searches have almost overtaken Web searches in all over the world and Google ranks URLs optimized for mobile higher in rank as far as mobile searches are concerned. Therefore a responsive design, which is best for mobile search, is also the best for your SEO.
Time to Work
With the above list by our side we can now easily say that in these days for remaining on the top, SEO is inevitable, and with the change in viewership mediums it is also required that we remain on top positions in both mobile searches and desktop searches. To achieve all this as per our SEO objectives, there cannot be anything better than a responsive Web design.
Author Bio
Keval Padia is a Founder & CEO of Nimblechapps, a fast-growing mobile app & website development company. The current innovation and updates of the field lures him to express his views and thoughts on certain topics.