How Responsive Web Design can Improve Your SEO

Every website owner wants to have a higher traffic statistic in his analytic. Because it is the gateway of their business. Responsive design is one of the must have feature and an approach to design a website in which the web-pages adapt the various browsers, resolutions, or devices and fall into suitable layout without requiring any customization. With the increasing number of mobile phones, it is very much important to have a website that is friendly to all the screens because a responsive website provides a finer browsing experience to the user without requiring much scrolling or adjusting the layout.

While reading some facts and reviews, I came across a doubtful state. Somebody had suggested that Google penalizes those websites that don’t contain mobile-friendly designs. To find in-depth reason I did some digging if there was a true story. Here’s what I found:

I would like to share one of the statements by Matt Cutts in an SMX session (“What’s Needed for SEO Success in 2013 and beyond”) “Mobile is going to surprise a lot of people. Be sure you look at how your site looks and performs on mobile.” This is actually a wakeup call for those who still own non responsive sites. Responsive design and mobile websites are not a new concept. And at this point of time, the value it is very much necessary that your website offers a mobile friendly experience.

Google always looks at search from the user perspective. When it comes to mobile, it depends what kind of audience you serve. If you are in such business where people search maximum from the remote screens like mobile or tablet, you must have a responsive website. Otherwise you are going to see a high number of bounce traffic in your analytics. With the recent change in Google search algorithms in respect of mobile friendly sites, Google may hit those websites badly. After all, Google has been setting this up for quite some time, and addressing it as a key ranking factor for searches performed on mobile devices. And guess what? You will simply lose your search ranking. It is thus advisable to have a mobile friendly site.

Last year Google comes up with mobile ranking system along with the release of the Hummingbird algorithm that favors all the mobile-friendly websites, in-fact made it necessary to have responsive design. It has many reasons. One is its ability to use a single URL for a website, making it easier to share content with other sites. As you know, a single URL also benefits a website's speed since it doesn’t require any kind of redirection. This favors mobile users who may not have the best connection.

The other reason is responsive design makes it easier for Google to crawl and index sites as opposed to crawling mobile-optimized websites, which use individual URLs for their desktop, tablet and mobile phone versions. This causes URL redirection

Thus you are advised to choose a mobile/tab/iPap compatible design. The user needs to get a mobile compatible version of your home page not a separate home page. A mobile friendly website has a higher ranking in the eyes of Google.