There are a lot of reasons to create websiteswith responsive designs.
If you want to establish a successfulwebsite, it is no longer simply a matter of
"build it and they will come". This is a
mobile world, and although virtually every
website can be accessed through a
handheld device like a tablet or mobile
phone, Google requires that you make
provision for your mobile customers. This
means that rather than just accessing the
site as it appears on a PC, a site has to be
rearranged to make content properly
accessible through a handheld device.
Menus have to be easy to open, images
placed in an appropriate place, and text
easily readable in a space that is
sometimes less than 2.5 inches square.
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Customer Care
The need to cater to a mobile audiencesaw a substantial rise in the number of
sites with alternative versions designed to
optimize the mobile experience. Usually
this meant that a site had two versions:
http://www.mywebsite.com/ would be
accessible through a PC, while people on
the move would be redirected to http://
m.mywebsite.com/. However, a more
recent shortcut is websites that have a
"responsive" design - one site, but the
structure changes depending on whether it
is accessed by a PC or a handheld.
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User Experience
Responsive design is obviously a boon fordevelopers and users alike - developers get
to create only one superb website, while
visitors get the best possible user
experience. Of course, as new devices
come out, responsive design continues to
change and developers have to keep
abreast of that change, but the benefits of
a website with a responsive design far
outweigh the challenges, not least as far
as SEO is concerned.
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Google Policy
The bottom line is that Google is aresponsive design freak. Responsive
design represents the cutting edge of
industry best practice and Google
recognizes the effort designers go to cater
for a mobile audience. A series of recent
Google updates (including Caffeine, Panda
and Penguin) have focused on the user
experience. If someone uses a mobile
phone to access a huge monolithic site
designed for a PC, the chances are they
aren't going to be even able to hit a link to
go to the inner pages of that site. This
level of frustration is now recognized by
Google, and as a result slow, unresponsive
designs that are difficult to manage
through a handheld device place a website
much lower in search engine results.
Duplicate Content
From the early days, one of the keyproblems Google isolated as an issue has
always been duplicate content. Websites
that contain exactly the same content are
generally penalized, or at least one site -
usually the newer site - will be placed
further down the rankings than the older
site that might have originally contained
the content being copied. How does that
work when you have two versions of the
same site - one for PCs and another for
mobile devices? Responsive websites
designs are the ultimate workaround -
there's only one site and one set of
content that adapts to the device the user
is using to view it. Obviously much easier
for Google to manage, and they appreciate
the effort!
Duplicating SEO Efforts
Although there are considerable changesas far as SEO is concerned these days,
especially in a "post-Panda" environment,
the bottom line is if a website gets a lot of
links, then it is probably going to do well
in search engine results. So if you have
separate sites for PCs and handhelds,
where do the links go? And of course,
there are still the old SEO staples -
metatags, keywords, search engine friendly
URLs, text labels on images, etc., etc. Two
versions of the same site mean twice the
work.
Regional Google Sites
In the good old days the more links youhad to your site dictated where it appeared
in SERPs and, ultimately, how many people
visited your site. These days Google has
its own social network, it has its own
mobile telephone OS (Android) and it has
a host of tools including Google Analytics
and Google Webmasters to indicate how
many people are accessing a site, from
where, and how - whether it is using a PC
or a handheld device. These days a site's
position in SERPs is reflected in the
number of people who visit the site. And
the modern Google is no longer just a
central processor as it was before. Google
has morphed into hundreds of sites all
with a focus on specific countries and
specific areas.
Local Google Ranking
Of course, there is Google.com, but thereis also Google.co.uk which, as you might
imagine, has more of a United Kingdom
orientation. Bizarrely though there's also
Google.im - a Google search engine
specifically for the Isle of Man, a small
island off the coast of England with less
than 85,000 inhabitants: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Man. Look at
these extensions in this list of Google
sites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
List_of_Google_domains. As you can see,
Google is now a very local affair. So, if you
are heading downtown in Singapore and
you check out your favorite Singapore
restaurant site to find out where to eat
tonight, Google will know, and the site you
use will get a higher ranking in Google.sg.

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