8 Reasons Why Responsive Websites are Great for SEO

1:09 PM April 6, 2017

In this article I discuss 8 reasons why having a responsive website it great for SEO. – (Infographic)

The Internet has grown to full maturity. Just take a look at how people access the Web these days and you’ll agree that this statement is true. People can go online in the office or at home with their laptops and desktops, or even while on the move with their web-enabled gadgets. The Mobile Internet is rapidly evolving and it’s predicted that this year will be the year that mobile web access will finally overtake desktop Internet access.

With a diversity in devices comes the need to present your content, products and services to any Internet enabled smart gadget with a uniform design and functionality. If your website is presented well on a desktop or laptop, it should present equally as well when on mobile devices.

To answer this need comes responsive web design. Responsive design was developed to make websites more mobile-friendly, no matter what gadgets online users have at their disposal. With mobile Internet comes mobile search, a fact business website owners need to get adjusted with, particularly if they are relying on SEO to drive targeted traffic to their sites. A responsive website is the perfect platform to cater to this need. The following 8 reasons why a responsive web design is great for SEO.

1. A Responsive Website Gives You One Website for All Devices

The main goal of a search engines is to present searchers with the information they are looking for. A problem arises when mobile users visit websites not configured for mobile devices. If a website is not mobile optimized with a responsive design statistics show 61% will perform another search.

Google ranking algorithm takes into account the bounce rate on a website, even from a mobile device. Increased bounce rates definitely affect your site rankings. When your website is responsive you don’t need not worry about what device a visitor is using.

2. Responsive Websites Give You One Website with One URL

The old way to deliver a better mobile viewing experience was to create multiple websites with individual URLs, each of which designed with specific devices in mind. To illustrate this, a www.example.com website may have a separate example.mobi or m.example.com mobile version of the main website – which would contain duplicate content but with different configurations and layout.

The drawback of maintaining multiple websites from an SEO standpoint is its negative impact on PageRank. Rank gets divided among your domains and URLs preventing the search engine to assign page authority. A scattered authority hinders your website’s architecture causing it to fare poorly with Google and other search engines from an SEO standpoint. This dilemma is solved by using a single responsive website uysing a single URL. Your site will get indexed easier, authority of your pages gets established, and all back-links are directed to a single domain – boosting your rankings in SERPs.

3. Responsive Websites Rank Better in Mobile Searches

A website optimized for mobile devices will have a greater chance of ranking higher in searches. Google’s search algorithm and indexing system will automatically serve the best mobile responsive website before a non-responsive one, and the content will get indexed and categorized faster.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that more than 90% of consumers in the United States own a mobile device. Among these mobile users, 57% have the capability of using the Internet and are performing mobile searches. Having a responsive website gives your business a better chance of reaching this very dynamic and continually growing market.

4. Responsive Websites Have Better Authority

In SEO page authority is given by search engines when indexing a website. This authority gets shared if you have multiple versions of your website, particularly if they have the same content but different domains. As long as you have properly established “canonical tags” or “switchboard tags” which tell Google that your multiple websites are just different versions of the same thing. In most cases, the mobile versions may not get the proper page authority and indexing to appear in search results. In Bing, dedicated mobile sites are practically disregarded.

With responsive designs, you don’t have to worries about losing page authority. You also don’t have to deal with canonical tags and manually placing the required code in all your pages.

5. A Responsive Website is Better for Link Building

Having multiple websites to cater to mobile users will dilute link-building efforts, and affect your SEO. Back-links usually point to the main website, with mobile versions having lesser backlink buildup, making it less competitive in mobile searches and mobile SEO. With a responsive website, you have a single domain and site that will serve as a repository for all your backlinks – regardless of whether it was sourced from a desktop or a mobile device. This will give your website better link equity and providing a stronger and more reliable back-link profile that will factor greatly in improving SEO for higher search rankings.

6. Responsive Design Makes Your Site More Usable

A responsive design would make your website more usable for your targeted audience. Content is laid out properly according to the viewing screens resolution, making it more readable and useful to your target audience. Site quality and usability accounts for a better user experience, and this will be a big factor in providing your website better value in terms of SEO.

7. Responsive Websites are Easier to Manage

Having to maintain multiple websites for different platforms can be a management and administrative headache that will eventually take its toll and affect your efficiency. With a responsive design, website management is much easier, giving you more time to focus on a single SEO strategy and improving your content. This allows more time for improving other elements of your site, such as optimizing your lay-out and the positioning of relevant content, giving your website maximum efficiency for your SEO campaign.

8. Responsive Designs are Recommended by Google

The most compelling reason why a responsive website is good for your SEO campaign is – Google says so. Google claims 67 percent of the search market, and that’s reason enough why business owners and digital marketers listen to what they are recommending. A responsive website design is considered by the search engine giant as the best practice in the industry because of its high flexibility across all devices and use of a single URL – making it easy for Google to crawl, index and rank your content.

Internet users are at the crossroad between choosing their mobile device and their computer to accomplish daily work and personal tasks. Think about it, how many times have you been sitting at your computer and picked up your smart phone to search for something or check your social media accounts? We’re all guilty of this and it’s because we view our mobile devices separate from our computers now. We see our smart phones as our personal handheld tool that gives us everything we need in our daily connected lives. So it’s simple to see why having a responsive website will be great for your business and for your SEO campaigns.

Need help converting your existing website to a responsive one, or want to create a new responsively designed website? Give us a call today 1-800-658-0113 or drop us a quote request.