17% of Global Web Usage Coming From Mobile Phones

In a recent study done by Statista, an online statistics portal, the company discovered that 17% of global web usage and page views were coming from mobile devices. North America alone saw an increase in page views coming from mobile devices rise almost 6% over last year. While this may seem like a relatively small percentage of the overall page views, it is important to notice that it was a 6% increase over the 2012 number of 11% of the page views. As this number is expected to increase as more and more people buy smartphones, it is important for advertisers to realize the potential that this change has for its customers and the way they market to them.

Responsive Design

As noted in previous posts and several articles throughout the web, responsive design is the new trend in web development and design. Built to format to any type of device and format, responsive design allows users to view your website whenever and with whatever type of device they are on. Utilizing responsive design for a site not only allows the advertiser to create one unified template for both desktop and mobile, but also saves web developers time.

Mobile Apps

With the increase in page views via mobile devices, it is important to take into factor a mobile app for an advertiser. A mobile app not only allows you to occupy space on a customer's smartphone or tablet, but also can give them one touch or tap ability to visit your website. With a mobile app, advertisers can also reach their customers through push notifications, text messages and more.

Social Media

As customers increase their time spent on mobile devices, so should advertisers. Social media review and location apps like Yelp and Foursquare should be at the forefront of this development. By effectively creating and branding these pages, as well as promoting them on the website and brick and mortar shops of businesses, businesses are effectively creating a customer generated focus group that allows the business owner to see what their busiest days are, what time that they get the most people and so much more. This type of interaction between customer and business also helps to increase that pages rankings within search results pages, improving the businesses chances of reaching new customers.

With the numbers mentioned above only increasing as the years go on and more people switch to mobile devices over their desktop or laptop, it is important for businesses to adapt to the new platform, just like when the internet was the next big thing. Failure to correctly adapt can and will lead to losses in sales, drops in visits to the site, and potentially loss of page rank and position in the search results pages. 

Responsive Web Design: What Is It and How Does It Affect my Website Development Strategy?

Responsive web design is a fairly new concept in the world of website development and design that is fast becoming a necessity in the ever-changing mobile world. With a variety of tablet, smart phone, laptop and desktop screen sizes, it is important that you utilize a website development plan and strategy that emphasizes one design that will adapt to each of these screen sizes, for a better user experience and interface.

What is Responsive Web Design?

Responsive web design is an approach to web page creation using flexible layouts, images and style sheets so that the viewer of the website is able to see a correct layout of a website without having to “pinch” their fingers in and out. Using the x and y coordinates on a grid of a page and mathematical percentages for images instead of the more traditional fixed-width parameters, designers and developers can create a more fluid design that can adapt to a wide range of displays.

Responsive Web Design and Website Development

Companies and businesses today need to consider responsive web design as an intricate piece of their website development strategy. With over mobile internet usage rising and fewer people using desktop computers to view webpages, it is important that you create a website that will not only be easy to read on a Apple iPhone, but also easily viewed on a Microsoft Surface or Android-powered tablet. Failure to do so could lead to poor customer experiences on a variety of pages on your website. Take for instance a blog page or an e-commerce page showing images of your products, using your old website development and design strategy you create a page that can be viewed perfectly on a desktop or laptop, but users on a mobile tablet or smart phone, will need to “pinch in and out or swipe their finger every few seconds in order to read a story or see a new product.

Responsive Web Design Helps Save Time

Not only will customers appreciate a website that utilizes a responsive web design, but the developers who created will also. Responsive web design utilizes multiple style sheets for the same web page, thereby repurposing HTML code, whereas a traditional website and mobile website will need to have two different types of code to be written for the website layouts, often from scratch. What would you rather choose, a house that has a sturdy frame and only needs to have a few things done to it in order to become your dream home or start with a blank piece of land and work your way up to a home?

With over half of the U.S. population owning a smart phones, it is now time for businesses and companies to consider how their websites are viewed on mobile devices and whether or not it is time to rework their website development strategy and add in responsive web design. Next time you are viewing your business’ website on your tablet or smart phone, take some time and look at the design and layout and ask yourself if it may be time to redesign your website.

Google Welcomes Mobile SEO into Their Algorithm and What You Can Do To Improve Your Mobile Site

As mentioned in several of our blog posts, the time for change in the way you develop and design your website is now, and it was made even clearer by Google in a recent blog post on their webmaster central blog.  As is custom with advancements in technology and search, Google has added mobile SEO into their search algorithms in order to improve their search results for mobile users.

What is Mobile SEO?

Mobile Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to digital content from search engines via natural search results to users entering mobile queries. It is important to realize that mobile SEO is focused on mobile searches, and as such, you should have a website that reflects those keywords and focuses on how a mobile user finds your current website. So what are some ways that Google offered as recommendations to help improve your chances of being found in the new mobile SEO algorithm?

Responsive Web Design

As explained in this post, responsive web design uses flexible layouts of your existing web page so that it can correctly be viewed in any format, whether it is mobile or desktop. Google recommends this type of design because it allows the same content to always be served to the user, regardless of the device that they are on.

Avoid Unplayable Videos

Have a video that you would like to share or already exists on your website? Ensure that it is mobile friendly and able to be viewed on all devices. Google recommends using HTML5 standard tags and to avoid using Flash, as this type of format is unable to be viewed on most types of mobile devices. If you are worried about a video not playing on a mobile device, offer up a transcript of the video as well on the page.

Faulty Redirects

As with all searches done on mobile or desktop devices, a customer expects to be directed to the exact page link they clicked on in the search results. This is not always the case on mobile searches however, as some companies will have a desktop page found on mobile searches redirect to an irrelevant page on their mobile site and Google has recognized this as a problem, and will hurt your rankings if you do not change it. Faulty redirects will also increase bounce rates and customer frustration with your mobile website, only hurting the chances that they will use your website again. To avoid this, ensure that each page of your website is optimized for mobile viewing.

Mobile SEO is something that needs to be done when creating or updating a website, and Google has only confirmed that it will play a much larger role in how and where your site appears on mobile searches in the future. So next time you meet with a client or look over your website for potential improvements, take a look at both your desktop and mobile website.