Category: Web Design

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Mobile Friendly Versus Responsive Website Design

Make sure you fully evaluate your options before buying a new website.
Make sure you fully evaluate your options before buying a new website.

As more and more clients try to understand what it takes to please Google and smartphone users there are some items that should be carefully reviewed by all website owners before they put down a deposit on a new website.

First, there is a difference between a mobile-friendly website and a responsive website.

Second, my personal preference is a responsive website.

The difference is…

Mobile friendly – typically means that the site content is being rendered for a smartphone. DudaMobile sites are a good example of this as as Wix websites. A separate website is created for the mobile audience. What is problematic is that if your webmaster does not add content updates to your mobile site or forgets to click refresh the site at DudaMobile, your mobile content may not reflect the changes to your regular website.

Responsive website – this is the preferential way to build your new website. Here a stylesheet takes one set of content and renders that same content in different ways for the device’s screen width. The only potential issue for using this approach is that you do not have content control for mobile only as you do with a mobile friendly site. That being said, more often than not, readers do want to see your full content not a stripped down mobile version that may lack the depth of content and information that your desktop site contains.

 

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Google Means Business on Forcing You to Have a Good Mobile Website

Just this last week Google announced that it was ready to start penalizing websites that did not offer a good mobile web experience. Here’s why:

• Mobile devices have been a driving factor in an increase in time spent online. In fact, since 2010, the time the average individual spends online has doubled.

 

 

• 91% of adults in the United States own a phone; 61% of those phones are smart phones.

 

 

• In 2012, marketers spent $4.4 billion on mobile advertising in the United States alone. By 2013, that number doubled to $8.5 million. By 2017, the figure is expected to fall around $31.1 billion. Search and PPC advertising accounts for nearly half of this budget.

 

 

• 25% of adults in the United States only use a mobile device to access the Internet. PCs have become tools of the past.

 

 

• Organic search results matter now more than ever before. In fact, one-third of all search clicks go to the top organic result; this means that the mobile icons Google is testing could play a larger role than you’d imagine going forward. Read the full article online.

Beautiful young woman talking on mobile phone
Smartphones are no longer a luxury but a necessity.

What Google is doing about this important trend is very important. In the search results, Google has been testing aggressively just how it will be notating information about your website. It has tested a variety of icons that are cues to readers that they experience when they click into a particular site will be mobile read friendly since September with testing continuing.

The next step most SEO’s feel is coming in the near future is an update in the Google search algorithm to penalize sites that do not offer the “right” experience, from Google’s point of view. Remember, Google is all about relevancy. If it stops keeping its eye on that mark, its own share of the market will change.

Already it is predicted, with Facebook’s strong growth this quarter in the mobile arena, that Google share will drop below 50% of mobile search activity. So, Google must stay focused on making sure that its search results for the mobile space are the most relevant and easiest to use in the search world for this growing audience of mobile search users. If it does not, it will lose advertising dollars and its place in the marketplace as the top search engine.

If your website does not have a great mobile experience, you may want to consider our mobile and device responsive websites that are strong on content and SEO for your next upgrade.

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How Long is Too Long When It Comes to a Web Page?

Put the knife to your content to trim it for mobile devices.
Put the knife to your content to trim it for mobile devices.

If you haven’t updated your website in a while you may have some monster pages that need to be trimmed down to work with mobile viewing patterns and our shorter attention spans.

So how long is too long?

If you have to scroll, scroll, scroll, and them scroll some more to get to the bottom of your page on a desktop screen, just think how much more scrolling you would be doing if you were on a smartphone or tablet. In fact, think about how you yourself use the web on a device, rarely will you scroll to the bottom of the page unless it is something you are really interested in. For that matter really long pages may not even load in a smartphone or may take so long that a reader simply clicks back to leave – I’ve done that and I’m sure you have too.

A good rule of thumb is that if a page is more than 1.5 Word document pages it should be shortened and turned into multiple pages. Typically a single page of a Word document is about 500 words. So get close to 800 to 1,000 and up and you really should be thinking of getting out the chopper.

Are there different topics on the same page?

Another good way to look at your own website page is to see if you are hopping around on topics. On that super long page, do you start talking about ants and then talk about each species of ant and then talk about termites too?

It is by far better to have content on one topic on one page and when you move to a new topic create a new page.

Make sure to test your update pages using a smartphone and a tablet. Doing so will give you a really good idea of when you get fatigued with scrolling and need to take the knife out to start trimming up your content.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that your old website is good enough, the mobile space is and has changed everything when it comes to presenting your message on the web. Find out how we can help you trim, adjust, and revise your content to be more concise or to decide where breaks or content should be scrapped.

 

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Responsive Websites in HTML5 Look Different

Home page of the new Heritage Pest Control website.
Home page of the new Heritage Pest Control website done in HTML5.

Technology marches on! What was popular in regards to website design is now passé today. What we used to think was fabulous and hi-tech two years ago, looks dated today.

Here’s what’s out and what’s in when it comes to website design styling:

What’s In

1. Large footer blogs that almost appear like a WordPress template that have full site navigation in lists typically three or four vertical spaces.

2. Social media icons in gray or muted colors to match the site and typically found in the footer on the right or left.

3. Top navigation and sometimes with drop downs but not always.

4. Smaller amount of content per page – keeping smartphone use in mind. There may be more pages but less content per page.

5. Wider banners that may nearly fill the whole screen on a desktop, but are resized to a smaller profile and size for smartphones.

What’s Out

1. Footer navigation separated by | like Home | About | Contact Us

2. Social media icons in color at the top right of every page in the header or banner.

3. Left sidebar static navigation and left menu flyouts.

4. Left and right side bars and a clutter of “ad-like” icons.

5. Pages that scroll on and on forever with tons of content.

Client feedback so far about HTML5 is mixed at this point. Many clients like the old graphics intense sites that they have used for years and see no problem with forcing site visitors to pinch and tap with smartphones, but those who are positioning themselves for the future are embracing the responsive designs and streamlined look and feel of responsive HTML5 sites as the way of the future.

Starting at $1,850 our responsive designs are built to go up fast, be SEO friendly and include 5 pages of custom content.