Responsive design is nowadays a necessity for every single web site out there. If a site is not responsive, huge problems can appear. One factor that is automatically affected is the ranking that appears in search engines for that particular site. This is one aspect that many do not understand. The mere use of responsive design increases rankings and there are various SEO benefits that instantly appear. Here are some of the important ones to remember.
Google Favors Sites That Are Responsive
Whenever talking about SEO, we have to look at Google since its search market share is huge. The company recommends responsive web design and actually favors the sites that are mobile optimized whenever the user will perform a search with the use of a mobile device. It is easy to understand why Google favors responsive design since there are fewer pages to crawl as opposed to going through a separate mobile version of a site.
Having Only One URL
When you have a separate mobile version for a website, you basically have 2 sites that have to be optimized. You also have 2 different SEO campaigns that are run at the same time. The SEO services have to be applied for more pages, which automatically means that you pay more. At the same time, you have to worry about duplicate content penalties appearing since Google now favors the responsive design approach.
When we have a website that is responsive, the social shares can be built for just 1 URL. At the same time, as the site is shared, no matter what device is used to view the content, we will see everything clearly and the pages will be really easy to navigate.
Reducing Bounce Rate
Bounce rate will be a huge problem even for sites that have high positioning in search engine results. A mobile site can have a high bounce rate whenever content offered is stripped down or not the same as with the desktop website. Google sees the higher bounce rate as a sign that your site does not offer relevant content. This inevitably leads to ranking drops. Responsive design instantly combats this problem as all the content that is present on the desktop website appears on any device, in a highly functional way.
An Enhanced User Experience
The friendly website will make it a lot easier for the visitor to absorb, find and pass on quality content. Responsive design will always put an emphasis on the user. User experience is huge in modern search engine optimization. This is because of the fact that when user experience is proper, more time is spent on a website. Search engines see this as a sign of quality.
Remember that responsive web design will help the site to be more appealing for the modern user. At the same time, it will help a lot when referring to SEO. Because of that, there is absolutely no reason why you wouldn’t use it. Just make sure that everything is properly designed and that the site will actually look great on all possible devices.