One Year On From Mobilegeddon How Has The Internet Changed
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A little over a year ago, Mobilegeddon hit the internet. Google's mobile-focused update was billed as one of the biggest changes to the search engine in years, and the enhanced focus on mobile-friendly and responsive eCommerce sites has certainly had an impact. Although the focus of the update was entirely on smartphones and mobile devices, it has had a knock-on effect which has caused websites all over the world to offer their customers a much better experience.
Responsive websites are now an essential component of any website. If your website isn't designed responsively, then are alienating a huge percentage of your audience . Just as bad, you could even be throwing away your search engine results page (SERP) position. Google is definitely going to provide higher rankings to adaptive websites which offer an enjoyable and comfortable experience for any user.
For starters, the extensive coverage of Mobilegeddon and the results since its introduction have worked to scare and encourage business and website owners to create responsive website designs. Even Google were a little late to the party when it comes to mobile searching, as it was as early as 2014 when thenumber of mobile users surpassed those on desktop devices. 40% of all users would press the back button and return to their search engine results page if the site they chose was not responsive to their device and as many as 4 in 5 smartphone users would access retail content using their mobile device.
That was the internet landscape when Google introduced Mobilegeddon, on April 21st 2015. Today, responsive websites are absolutely essential if you hope to appeal to Googly, Yahoo or Bing. They are even more important when it comes to providing a great user experience (UX), which is one of Google's major concerns.
Today, as much as 60% of the internet is accessed using mobile devices including smartphones and tablet PCs. If you aren't already offering an adaptive andresponsive website, then you need to get to work as quickly as you can. Research has shown that as many as 91% of small businesses don't have their website optimised for mobile – you can't afford to offer your customers a substandard service, just because they are using their mobile devices!
http://www.smartinsights.com/?attachment_id=53811
As you can see from the link above, the amount of time that people are spending on their mobile devices has hugely increased over the past decade. More people are using their mobile devices to access social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest than ever before and retail is playing a large part of this.
All over the world, people are using their favourite mobile devices to buy products, subscriptions and services. eCommerce is already hugely popular, but the conversion rates on mobile devices are quickly starting to increase. For many years, people have been hesitant to convert over mobile devices over security fears. As it becomes more and more convenient, and more websites are taking the time to reassure their customers, the conversion rate for mobile devices is quickly starting to rise.
The above Smart Insights table shows the average conversion rate by device in both the UK and the US. As you can see, the conversion rate for mobile devices drastically improved following on from Google's Mobilegeddon in both the UK and the US. It is unsurprising to see that the largest rise took place in the UK, which is the world leader in eCommerce .
Responsive eCommerce websites are absolutely essential if you hope to take full advantage of the benefits which online retail can provide. eCommerce is no longer a nice feature to offer; your business will not be able to survive or continue to grow, if you aren't offering your customers the ability to buy directly from you.
Now that you understand just how essential a responsive website is to your business, you're wondering how you go about creating one. Well, here at Advansys, we can help you to develop the perfect online solution for your needs, with a focus on UX and brand identity. It really can help for you to understand the best practices when it comes to designing and developing your adaptive responsive website to make sure that it can appeal to Google, Yahoo and Bing, as well as your customers.
Here are 10 tips to help you get started with responsive website design:
1. Always Design For Mobile First – Before you start to plan out your bespoke design on a desktop or laptop screen, make sure that you think about the user experience on a mobile platform,like a smartphone or tablet PC. Not only is mobile now more relevant than desktop, it is also much harder to scale a design down than it is to scale it up.
Focus your website design on a mobile user and build outwards – you don't want to design a perfect layout, only to lose it all as the screen size gets much lower.
2. Understand What Mobile Actually Means For Your Users – People interact with websites in different ways, especially when using a smartphone. A lot of the time, people will want a quick and easy interaction on a mobile device whereas they might prefer something a little more detailed and visually-pleasing on a desktop or laptop screen.
Still, you can continue to adapt your website once it has been built. Once you understand which features your customers are using on their mobile devices, work to make them larger and more accessible on the design. The search bar is a good example – if your customers prefer to search for information rather than attempt to use your navigation, make the search bar easier to click on and use.
3. Understand The Tech Behind Responsive Design – There are three main features of responsive website design which you need to understand. When used together, your website will be able to dynamically adapt to the requirements of the device it is being accessed on. These three features are:
4. Think About The Need For Speed – One of the only drawbacks for responsive eCommerce websites is that they can often take longer to load when compared to non-responsive alternatives. Most will completely load in less than 8 seconds, but 64% of modern smartphone users expect a website to load in 4 seconds or less .
There are a couple of different reasons for the slightly slower load time. The biggest culprit is the presence on non-optimised images, which can take significantly longer to load and shrink down. Fortunately, using tools like Adaptive Images and TinyPNG, you can quickly scale down all kinds of hefty images.
Media queries can also contribute to the load time of a website, but this difference is measured in milliseconds and is always worth the extra load time to make sure the final website is of the highest quality.
5. The User Experience Is Everything – Although UX is always important in any kind of commercial website, for mobile-friendly and responsive websites you need to make it the most important thing. There are dozens of potential problems that you can run into which will completely ruin the experience for your users.
There are too many to list here, but just a few of the most common include:
6. Always Design For Screen Orientation – People will turn their devices in order to create the best interaction for them. You need to make sure that your website can be used on a horizontal or vertical basis (as per fluid grids). What's more, you need to make sure that the interaction remains just as high-quality and that none of your text or images are forced to stretch.
So long as you follow all of these tips, and keep your user experience in mind throughout the entire design process, you'll be able to take full advantage of the benefits provided by responsive eCommerce.
At Advansys, we can create a full range of unique responsive and adaptive websites to make sure that your business can offer a great UX on every device. Ifyou want to improve clicks, conversions and sales for your business online, then you need to take advantage of the highest-quality responsive eCommerce solutions today.
With Google now paying special attention to those sites which are suitable for both mobile and desktop use, responsive website design is now essential for search engine optimisation as well as online retail.If you want to attract customers to your site through search engines, and make sure that that they have a great experience whilst they are there, bespoke and responsive eCommerce is absolutely essential.
For more information on the benefits of adaptive web design and development, get in touch with our team today on 0845 838 2700. Alternatively, you can email any questions or concerns to sales@advansys.com and we'll get back in touch as soon as we can!