Your business website might look great on desktops. Perhaps it conveys your sense of professionalism perfectly. You might have even spent big bucks on your snazzy design. But with the rise of mobile, the way your business website looks will soon take a backseat to its mobile friendliness.

That’s right – responsive design that’s optimized to work equally well across various devices is becoming more important by the day. With each passing year, Google’s reports show that a higher percentage of searches being done from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets rather than desktops. Since as early as 2014, the amount of mobile searches in the US have already overtaken the amount of searches from desktops.

But unfortunately, too many businesses are still stuck with the idea that websites should be made for desktops. Some businesses even value the desktop version of their website so much, they completely ignore paying any attention to their mobile.

Responsive Design Is the Future

The importance of responsive design for SEO and website functionality isn’t a new idea. For many years now Google has been telling businesses that responsive design is best practice. The search engine has already suggested responsive design as a way to make your website more user friendly from as early as 2013.

Responsive design makes it easier for Google to crawl your website for relevant content. That’s because responsive design uses the same URL for both the desktop and mobile version of a website. The HTML content is also the same for both the desktop and mobile website. This obviously simplifies things a lot when Google’s crawlers are trying to make sense of your content. By using a responsive design, you get the same SEO benefits across all devices without having to duplicate your efforts.

The best news here is that responsive designs aren’t hard to get. Even many free website themes come with a responsive design nowadays. And while using a free theme for your business website probably isn’t the best idea, you should insist on responsive design whenever you approach a professional web design company.

With a good web designer, your mobile website should simply looks like a smaller version of your desktop site. While free themes often offer the benefit of responsive design, they details in your design will be lost on mobile – meaning you’ll give your mobile visitors the same quality use experience, but with a duller website.

Responsive Design Lowers Bounce Rate

Although there are more searches from mobile devices these days, mobile users don’t have patience with websites that aren’t fully optimized for mobile. After all, a website that doesn’t work on mobile is so 2011! You should have gotten this right ages ago.

Truth is, mobile searchers are used to the fact that not all websites are equally optimized for their mobile devices. This is a common problem that everyone with a smartphone or tablet has encountered at some point. Because searchers know that some websites have a few glitches when viewed from mobile, they’re quick to leave your site at the first indication that it doesn’t perform well.

According to Google, more than half of your mobile searchers will leave your website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Take into consideration that most US searchers use mobile devices, and you’re losing a huge amount of potential customers.

Reach Them While They Travel

Quick question: Do you ever use Internet searchers to find restaurants and other businesses while you’re on vacation, or any place you don’t know well?

If you answered yes, you’re a perfectly normal person. In the 21st century, Internet searches are largely taking over traditional phone books. The great thing about an Internet search is that people can literally do it while they’re on the road. Even while traveling on the bus or in the car, it’s easy to do a search for something right on the spot.

Of course, people don’t drag their desktops with them everywhere they go in the same way they do with their smartphones. So if your business could bring in more feet by attracting these impromptu searchers, optimizing for mobile is an absolute must.

Especially businesses like hotels, guest houses and B&B’s could benefit from responsive designs, as many people might actually search for accommodation in a town or city at the last minute instead of booking ahead of time.

But the same is true for restaurants, spas, hairdressers and even health care professionals. These are all businesses people are likely to search for without planning ahead.

At any given moment, someone could search for your business from anywhere using their smartphone. It doesn’t even matter if they’re sitting in a coffee shop, or the cafeteria at work. As far as modern people are concerned, their mobile phones give them the world at their finger tips.

Get A Professional Mobile-Ready Website

If you’re interested in taking advantage of the power of local search and mobile friendly design, contact Serious SEM for help designing your professional business website. We pride ourselves in website design that accurately represents your brand, while optimizing it across devices so you can make a positive first impression no matter what device your visitors are using.

Your business website can be your best way to attract new customers. Online search and local SEO are becoming ever more important as potential customers are relying more and more on the Internet to find businesses in their local area, as well as places they travel to.