Yesterday Jillian (pictured) and I adventured to Women Entrepreneurs of Saskatchewan Inc. to present as a part of their Let’s Talk Business series. We jumped at the opportunity to present about Responsive Websites for Business as we’ve always been on the responsive train, so to speak, at 2 Web Design, but now that Google is pushing mobile friendly as a search ranking factor beginning April 21st, 2015… we felt our message rang clearer with the worlds largest search engine on our side. We would like to say thanks to Women Entrepreneurs for inviting us to present and to all of those who attended! You are the greatest!
ICYMI, you can check out our presentation below.
Responsive Websites for Business
Key takeaways:
1. Responsive design is not just a button that your developers can just “turn on”.
2. It’s all about user-experience.
3. You’re site may be “mobile friendly” but still lack mobile optimization.
4. It’s all about performing well with any device – hence, “mobile friendly”.
Summary of Post-presentation Q&A:
1. Can you convert my old static website to responsive design?
Yes but this may take a lot of planning and time to reformat the layouts.
2. How do I speak to my developer about making my website mobile friendly?
Tell them that your website needs to be flexible to adapt to any screen size.
3. How do I optimize my mobile site?
Utilize functional design. Design for “fat fingers” which means making sure that you can scroll or click on something without accidentally clicking on something else. Ensure that side scrolling is minimal, avoid flash and other unplayable content. Make sure that your website loads fast.
4. Will the new Google update effect desktop search rankings?
Although it is not 100% clear, it looks like this update will only effect mobile search rankings. However, as this is not set in stone, and in case there are repercussions to desktop search rankings, it is advisable to invest in a responsive web design at ones earliest convenience as we all know of the prolific nature of mobile devices in our world.
Let us know in the comments section below if you have any questions about our presentation or about going mobile friendly. We’d be happy to assist!
