Hello all,
Welcome to another tip from our Project Team. In this article we will be covering Google’s recent release that they will be stacking results in favor of sites with “Responsive” builds. As usual, our disclaimer is as follows. We do not claim to be the ultimate authority on this topic. We just hope that our 20+ years of knowledge in this industry allows us to give our opinions and share our experiences.
So, this is a really big deal for the web design community. This will literally force most web designers to update their builds and for a lot of clients to come out of the stone ages. Now, if you have had your website designed in the last 5 years, roughly, your site is probably already responsive. This is especially true if your are using WordPress, Magento, BigCartel, LemonStand, etc. Most of these guys adapted responsive infrastructures fairly fast.
Any designer worth their salt has known about building sites responsively for quite some time now. Although, it is amazing how many people still do not know the importance of this technology. Before I start rambling on, let me show you an example of what I am talking about for anyone that needs help understanding:
As you can see, the design on the left would require a lot of “Pinch Zooming” to just be able to navigate the site. Also reading anything would be a stressful task.
The design on the right takes all the relevant content and renders it in a retina friendly view. This gives you legible content, easy navigation menus and the ease of use that you would expect when viewing online.
If you want to see this feature happen on this page, just simply grab the edge of your browser and expand/contract the viewing area to see this page “Respond” to the width of the browser. It’s really cool. Give it a try now, go ahead… you know you want to. If you are on a mobile device, the most you can do is rotate between portrait and landscape view, but you will still get the point. Cool stuff right?
This is what Google is forcing company’s to do if they want to be shown on mobile device’s search results. Now, if you are a client that does not care about being viewed on mobile devices, then this will not concern you. Your clients that search for you on desktops and laptops will still find you in your usual spot when searched.
Once again, THIS IS FOR MOBILE SEARCHING. I must be clear here as I do not want to mislead any readers. This is only a big deal for those that want to have exposure on mobile search results. Now this can change and probably will. To be honest, it just makes sense to be more safe than sorry. If you haven’t updated your site in a long time or just didn’t know about this, then you should definitely take the time to adapt.
That being said, if you have not made a switch to responsive designs or mobile apps, now is the time.
Thanks again for your time and have a great day!
– SMS Project Team