Today, over half of internet users access the world’s digital resources from smartphones and tablets. Hence, search engines have also started ranking websites based on mobile “viewability” and user experience.
It is essential to use responsive web design to get top ranking on mobile searches.
Offline conversions are also becoming increasingly important, which is why you must learn how to rank in Google Search to get traffic from search queries that aren’t directly typed into a browser.
The good news is that it is now easier than ever to get your website mobile-friendly and build a solid online presence using responsive web design for mobile SEO. This article will point you in the right direction so that you can start implementing responsive design principles on your site today!
What is Responsive Web Design?
Responsive web design aims to craft sites that deliver an optimal viewing experience across multiple devices. Responsive web designs adjust a website’s layout, appearance, and behaviour to fit a wide range of screen sizes without requiring the user to shift their focus from one device to another.
Responsive web design is based on CSS media queries, which are inbuilt features that can be used by any frontend developer or designer to dynamically alter the layouts of their websites. To get your website mobile-friendly and rank well on mobile searches with responsive web design, here are some tips that you can follow:
- Use a single-page layout.
- Set your optimised design to cater for devices with different resolutions, between 280px (phones), 800px (tablet portrait mode) and 1240px (tablet landscape mode) wide.
- Make all your navigation go above the fold.
- Use version numbers in your favicon URL (Ex: “v1”).
- Optimise images for retina displays.
- Reduce loading time for visitors by minimising HTTP requests and using CSS animations when possible.
- Choose a font size 100% of the default browser zoom level (Ex: 16px).
- Minimise horizontal scrolling where possible by using CSS or JavaScript methods such as overflow-x or position fixed; this will allow visitors to scroll up and down without being interrupted by the content they cannot see because it has already been scrolled out of view.
Changing Search Algorithms
Google has taken a significant step toward improving the mobile user experience by changing its search algorithm. With this change, Google will now rank websites optimised for mobile devices at a higher priority than those not.
To be perceived as a mobile-friendly site, your website must meet these three criteria:
- It should load quickly on all devices.
- It should use smaller fonts and images to view better on lower-resolution screens.
- It should use responsive design principles to look good on any device.
Naturally, search engines will continue to adapt and develop their algorithms as technology and user behaviour change. You must stay on top of these developments and implement strategies to take advantage of your business.
How To Get Top 10 Rankings On Mobile Searches?
You have to be aware of a few things when you’re trying to get top 10 rankings on mobile searches.
1) Mobile-Friendly Design – As the name suggests, one of the most critical aspects is designing your site with a mobile-friendly design. You will have to ensure that your website is built in such a way as to make it easy for people to fully enjoy its content on their smartphones and tablets. This means not just optimising your website for specific devices but also making sure it looks good on different screen sizes.
2) Responsive Web Design – The second important factor is responsive web design which makes websites accessible and usable across all devices. With responsive web design, the content adapts and changes based on the dimensions of the device that it’s being viewed from. You can use CSS media queries to create layouts optimised for different screen sizes using fluid grids.
3) Optimise For Mobile Searches – It’s essential now more than ever to rank for mobile searches as many users look for things directly on their smartphones and tablets without going through a desktop browser first. Seventy-one per cent of smartphone and tablet users search now from their handheld devices without going through a desktop browser first, according to Google Search trends report 2018.
4) Create a sitemap – You should also create a sitemap to help search engines index your content more efficiently. Finally, optimise your mobile site with responsive web design principles to get top 10 rankings on mobile searches!
Improving User Experience while the Website is Loading
One of the most critical elements of a responsive web design is the speed at which a website loads. This is because users are impatient and will leave your site if unsatisfied with how quickly it loads.
Here are some great tips to improve load times:
-First, use CSS files that load last to avoid loading multiple CSS files that can slow your site down.
-Next, use JavaScript functions such as defer() to delay the loading of code after the browser has loaded HTML so that other components don’t need to be loaded until it’s needed instead of before.
-Finally, use compression tools like gzip on images and minification tools like uglify js to reduce the size of your files before loading them into the browser.
Conclusion
It’s essential to have an optimised website to rank well on Google Search and deliver a great user experience. Fortunately, responsive web design is a great way to create websites that are fast and easy to navigate while ranking well on Google Search!
Now that you know what responsive web design is and how to optimise your website for mobile search, you can finally start implementing responsive web design.
With the right tools, you can take your website to the next level and get it ranked better for mobile searches!