Responsive and Mobile Friendly Websites are often the subject of conversation with the clients that come to me for website design. As we approach the 2017 New Year however, this should not even be a topic of conversation, and yet it’s so frequent that I am beginning to take a long hard notice because, it’s constantly being discussed.
When a website designer whether it is myself or another designer or developer designs your website that website should not just be a mobile friendly website but, it should be an effective completely responsive website across all platforms. This means that your website should come up and be responsive on Iphone, Android, Tablets, Laptops, Desktops, and even your Living room Flat Screen Television.
Over the weekend I met up with some friends at the Alpharetta Cheesecake Factory and while we were at dinner the topic of our frustrations in business came up in conversation and somehow web design and content writing came into the discussion and I said “Out of all of the issues that I’ve had with clients lately the one that got me the most was the client that came to me looking for a mobile friendly responsive website that had no scroll whatsoever on any platform whether it was mobile, tablet or, desktop. It’s not possible, 1990’s design options don’t exist anymore, and it’s for a good reason. If a client comes to me for design, I’m going to give them the design that is up to date, and responsive on all platforms because it is no longer 1996 but is instead almost 2017.”
So what steps should your small business be taking in order to achieve a mobile friendly, responsive website that works well across all platforms including mobile, tablet and desktop / laptop? Let’s take a look:
Optimizing Your Website For Mobile: Whether you are a startup, a small business, freelancer or, large corporate business your brand shouldn’t be ignoring that 90% of web users access the internet through their mobile devices. Even if you aren’t ready for a complete website re-design you can take the following steps in order to increase your mobile friendliness of your website.
- Simplify Your Website Design: Start by typing in your website URL on your mobile web browser. In order for a site to be seen as mobile friendly by the search engines. You can do this by cutting back on image sliders on your website, videos, by increasing the font size on your web copy with critical information being displayed above the fold (the section where you have to begin scrolling) and large touchable buttons that are easily clickable. This helps deliver key and crucial information about your business immediately upon a visitor coming to your website on across all platforms.
- Adapt your Website Design: Large corporate companies have learned to do this over the last several years. In order to achieve the largest possible reach, and the easiest functionality across the board on all platforms sites like American Airlines, Amazon, Best Buy, and Macy’s have learned to adapt to cross platform adaption techniques. By using the Website Adaption strategy the website itself detects and identifies the customer or visitors device and intuitively generates the correct layout that matches the platform’s capabilities.
- Responsive Design: Responsive design is the affordable solution to across the board platform design that is designed for startups and small businesses with a limited amount of marketing funds. Designers that utilize WordPress and Squarespace for example (with Squarespace being the highest ranking of the two right now according to cross platform testing services) are naturally offering these platform design options to you for this reason. When you design your website with Squarespace or, WordPress you are weeding out the complications of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and going with a template design that matches your needs, and that you can update on your own easily removing the necessity of another monthly management fee for your website that you infrequently update. For businesses that update with new products, and new services or, sales specials you may still need monthly management but, ease of use, and ease of change making creates a win win situation for everyone. Similarly, a responsive website enables you to reach the most target clients from your target market in the shortest amount of time possible. User Readability is the goal whether the site is shrinked down for mobile usage or, is enlarged for Flat Screen viewing.
- Future Planning, and Preparation: While small changes to your present website are always possible whether we are talking about color changes, layout changes or, content changes a new website needs to be at the top of your coming soon list. If the initial budget isn’t there a limited amount of us designers assist you in this process by offering a Layaway your website program allowing you to make payments on future website design payable through a layaway program with convenient payment terms for your website that doesn’t break your bank account or, take forever. While Initial down payments are required weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or, other payment plans can be arranged, and the benefits to this process include the ability to really think through your website wants, and needs, and begin the branding process, and strategy planning before the design process begins. Applicable Planning is never a bad thing. In-fact if you discuss strategy and put an action plan together before taking action, placing everyone on the same page the process of your website’s new beginning will go that much smoother, and flow as it should. Preparation is a beautiful thing. Whether you choose Go Daddy, Wix, Weebly, WordPress, Squarespace or, another platform all of these affordable options (some even offering monthly payments for hosting and platform options offer responsive themes. Just ask myself or, the designer of your choice what your options are because, those of us who take our clients needs and place them as a priority will be happy to answer questions, and guide you. Customer Experience is all apart of the EmBe Writes service package, and personally, I spend a lot of time listening to my clients wants, and needs and try to ensure their satisfaction at the most affordable price possible on payment terms that make realistic sense for them personally, and professionally.
While there are many questions surrounding mobile friendly websites, the most effective solution comes from your ability to utilize your resources and create an effective solution from those options. Squarespace websites for example are ranking higher than WordPress websites across the board in the testing phase of websites which means that Squarespace is dominating the search engines which leaves no question as to why many brand names are utilizing the platform in order to move forward and grow. Break through the wall that is holding you back, and lets talk about your goals, what you want, what you envision, and where together we need to go from here in order to create the effective solution that leads to your success today.
Contact Me Today.
EmBe Writes
Misty L. Burrell
678-941-9330
EmBeWrites.com
embewrites.wordpress.com 