Mobile devices have gone to astronomical heights of popularity since their birth in the early 2010’s. It’s fair to say that every person in a developed country has one and something that we probably can’t be without on a daily basis. We seem to be using our phones more and more to discover information or browse websites. 

This makes a responsive website design important for your online presence as without it, you’re likely to lose potential customers due to them being faced with a poor user experience. Especially considering screen sizes can differ for different smartphones and tablets, but more importantly because it’s a vital ranking factor when trying to improve your SEO strategy.

SEO involves the process of making changes to a website that align with Google’s guidelines to appear higher in search ranking positions. Having a responsive website design nails the user experience factor that Google preaches about strongly.

Now that we know how it links, here are 5 responsive website design tips to consider when trying to boost your SEO.

Test loading times

Slow loading times can be extremely frustrating for users and can be the difference between your users interacting with your website or not using it at all. Google announced that loading times will be a big factor they’d consider through their algorithms when determining what websites should rank highly.

Test your site across different bandwidths and locations to determine how quick or slow it loads. From here, it will give you an idea of what improvements you can make to reduce loading times and provide a quick experience for your user.

Reduce bounce rates

If your website isn’t relevant and engaging for your user, they’ll be quick to leave the site and look elsewhere for information they’re looking for. When a user lands on your site and immediately leaves it, this is counted as a negative experience by Google and will decrease the credibility of your website.

If you identify that there are particular pages on your website that are experiencing high bounce rates, it would be important to address this as it’s an indication that your page isn’t catering to the users’ needs.

Duplicate content is a no-no

Although your websites may be on different designs, it is still effectively the same website that the user is viewing. Some choose to keep their mobile website different to their desktop version, which makes it difficult to avoid duplicate content.

If Google identifies duplicate content on different websites, they class this as plagiarism and majorly conflicting as it’s not unique content. By adopting responsive design, the websites can be merged into one URL without making two different websites to cater to different platforms.

Think about presentation

Many CMS platforms tend to provide a basic design theme for your website and you may think this is a bad thing. In reality though, designs that appear minimal provides clarity and class for your users. Which theme you choose is highly dependable on the type of business that you are. 

This is where a design agency manchester based could help with your choice. Their initial process would be getting to know your brand before creating a strategy for what type of features you should include for your website design.

Increase usability

How your site appears on mobiles can be a determining factor in users being attracted to your site compared to your competitors. If your site is difficult to navigate on mobile websites, it can provide users with poor user experience which can prevent them from returning to your website in the future. Gather feedback from users about what’s poor with your site’s navigation and take time to perfect it!