Platinum Business Magazine, Issue 11

Page 67

{ MARKETING }

RAPID RESPONSE

Big Beach Marketing Tel: 01273 434552 Web: www.bigbeach.co.uk

By Louise Walden Director of Big Beach Marketing

W

hy your website should be responsive - Louise Walden explains A responsive website adapts the screen size, format, navigation and, in some cases, content to suit the size of each visitor’s screen. Whether it’s a large desktop screen or a smartphone, a responsive website delivers the appropriate experience for that device.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

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Your website needs to be read easily, no matter what device potential customers are using. Visitors to your site will come as a result of a web search, in response to marketing activities you undertake or to find out more about your business prior to meeting with one of your team. It’s not a pleasant or positive experience if they have to pinch or zoom just to read your address. More people are now viewing websites on mobile devices than on desktop computers. If you are engaged in email marketing and encouraging recipients to click through to your website, there is a good chance that your email will be read on a mobile. Google has announced that as of April 21st this year, ‘mobile-friendliness’ will have

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a significant impact on their search results. This means that if your website does not cater for mobile visitors, your website will begin to

“Potential customers could be viewing your website on devices they could use to contact you with. Make it easy for them” appear lower in the Google search results. Why is this an issue? Over 90% of Google traffic is generated from websites listed on page 1 of Google searches. If you slip to page 2, website traffic drops by 95%. If you want people to find your website, it needs to be responsive. Mobile visitors are more likely to stay on your website and view more pages if it is

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responsive. If visitors cannot read or navigate easily to the page they want, they are likely to click straight off and onto another website, potentially that of a competitor. If that isn’t bad enough, having visitors land on one page, then leave causes what is known as a ‘bounce’ by Google, and, again, negatively impacts on your search ranking. Potential customers could be viewing your website on devices they could use to contact you with. Make it easy for them. A simple bit of code can enable visitors to ‘click to call’ your business. Rather than having to copy and paste the number, assuming it is big enough to read on a mobile, readers can simply click on a ‘CLICK TO CALL’ button to call you. Simples…

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Here at Big Beach we offer a complete marketing service, but websites do form an important part of the marketing mix. All of the websites we have produced for clients in recent years have been mobile-friendly as we believed this was good practice. Google has now proved that to be the case. The good news is that having a mobile-responsive website no longer costs an arm and a leg. If you’d like advice or help with updating your website, please get in touch.

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