Having a website that is compatible across all platforms (desktop, tablet, and smartphone) is no longer a choice, but a necessity. Following are 10 reasons why you should be planning to move toward a mobile-friendly website if you haven’t done so already.

***The last reason listed at #10 will have the most impact on the future of online presence for EVERY industry…and this change is coming SOON.***

Statista

8.) Having a mobile friendly website is worth the investment.

Whilst you might need to spend some money to get a top quality web designer to set up a responsive website for you, most website owners will tell you that it is money well spent. As well as preventing unhappy customers from shopping elsewhere it will mean less maintenance will be required in the future.

Now that you know the importance of having a mobile-friendly website, it’s time to check the mobile-friendliness of your website. You can do so by visiting https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/.

If you test your website and it does not pass Google’s specifications for mobile-friendliness, you have two choices.

1. Edit your existing website to fit Google’s specifications.
2. Redevelop a new website.

If your website is more than two years old, chances are your best option would be to redevelop a new website. If you are interested in having Global IT provide a quote to make sure your website is mobile-friendly, you can call us at 562-698-2500 opt. 2, or submit your request to design@globalit.com.

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1. Is the content relevant?

When adding new content, one must be sure that it has a purpose and is not a random addition that will clutter the page. The addition must fall under the correct category for the page it is on. It must be appropriate for what is happening and the circumstances that surrounds this information.

2. Does this sound helpful or like a sales pitch?

It is important to look at the information being added from the clients’ perspective. This does not mean the content of the message must be changed, but how it is said must be looked at. If a consumer is reading the information they do not want to feel like they are constantly being sold something. A reader will stop reading if they do not understand what is being said. Because of this, content must be helpful and easy to understand so the client feels like their needs are being met.

3. Is this new information being beneficial?

The website already has a lot of content. This means when thinking about adding more content, one must think about if this new information is necessary. Does this new content make the website or page better? Is it necessary that this is being said and is it being said in a concise and effective way? These are things needing to be considered before adding more to the page.

4. Is this the best way to say it?

Wording is a very important factor in any content. The way a sentence is written can really make a difference. On a site like this the best thing to do is make the phrasing of a sentence effective with minimum words.

5. Is the content free of errors?

This is the most common mistake and the one most easily found. People who are really reading this site will find errors in the content and may find a mistake unprofessional and sloppy. In order to keep the content in the best form, content must be proofread by multiple people, multiple times before added to the site. This is the case for everything written and published.

6. Is this design mobile friendly?

With a world increasingly dependent on mobile devices, everything published online must be accessible by computer and smartphone. This is a factor looked at by consumers and by google. Commonly, a site is found by a quick search on a phone before continuing on a computer for further research into a company’s page. Being a technological company, it is imperative that all bases are covered in these ways.

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What is Responsive Web Design?

Although responsive web design (RWD) is still in its early stages, Google already supports the technique as the best practice for developing a mobile website. An article by Ethan Marcotte spawned the concept of RWD as Marcotte toyed with the idea of transferring the idea of responsive architectural design to web design. Essentially, RWD is a system of building a site that responds to user behavior so that users enjoy a high quality experience no matter what device is used. There are three primary characteristics of responsive web design:

• A fluid grid
• Response to media queries
• Flexible images

With these three elements, a website is capable of shifting and adapting for a user based on the platform, screen size, and orientation. Fluid grids allow a website to quickly reconfigure itself to accommodate a new device with appropriate size, margins, and spacing. Different sections of a layout are assigned to different segments of the grid so that the layout can shift to promote the most relevant information.

By responding to CSS media queries, RWD is capable of using the appropriate configuration of the flexible grid. The smallest screens may only see one component of the grid at a time, while larger devices will trigger a more comprehensive view of the site. RWD uses the media queries to detect the type of device, so in addition to presenting the suitable grid the site can adjust its resolution and configure itself for a landscape or portrait view.

The final element of responsive web design is flexible images. Images are designed so that they also adjust to fit a device through a number of methods, such as:

• Hiding or revealing portions of the image
• Sliding composite images
• Scalable images

Thanks to these techniques, viewers will never again be frustrated by an image that is too large or refuses to properly load on a mobile device. RWD ensures that images as well as other media are appealing and manageable in a mobile format.

The Growth of Mobile

The need for such a revolutionary method of mobile web design is the direct result of the boom in mobile device usage in recent years. The statistics about the growth of mobile are staggering and are hard proof as to why it is essential for companies to expand their marketing campaign to target mobile devices. Consider the following statistics:

• 84% of people surveyed around the world say they couldn’t go a single day without using their cell phone.
• Global mobile data traffic grew by 70% in 2012, while smartphone usage increased by 81%.
• 45% of American adults own a smartphone and 31% of them have a tablet.
• In 2013, the number of mobile-connected devices is projected to overtake the number of the world’s population.

If your company is not targeting this massive audience, you are certainly losing opportunities to engage consumers and promote your brand.

A Versatile Viewing Experience

So why is RWD so great? One of the most popular benefits of RWD is that it eliminates the need for developing a unique site for every device that appears on the market. Theoretically, RWD prepares your site to handle any new gadget that will appear in the near future, however bizarre or revolutionary it may be. Streamlining your web development needs to one design reduces the time and money necessary for an effective website.

However, RWD is not simply beneficial for your company. It also offers a number of advantages to visitors to the site, primarily the all-important high quality viewing experience and complete versatility. Since consumers are beginning to buy more tablets, notebooks, and smartphones than computers, the quality of the viewing experience of your mobile site is just as important as your original site.

As RWD adapts to each type of device, your site can enable special features for touch screens, such as links and buttons that are thumb-friendly or the ability to swipe between different columns. With RWD, the website functions seamlessly through any device so that users can access all of the information on your site from any gadget with no decrease of site quality.

Optimizing For Search Engines

As mentioned above, Google is a strong supporter of responsive web design, largely due to the fact that RWD works well with search engines. Search engines appreciate RWD because it allows for clean, organized code that is easy to search and analyze.

In addition, RWD cuts out the risk of being penalized for creating duplicate content, since there is ultimately only one version of your site. If you were to set up a separate mobile site improperly, you would quickly incur a ranking penalty and therefore lose visitors and conversions. RWD lets your company maintain consistent information across the board.

Marketing Success With RWD

RWD is so effective that it directly increases the success of marketing efforts. For instance, sites that utilize RWD experience fewer abandoned checkouts because they are easier to use on mobile devices. Also, the time invested in your marketing campaign is more efficient because there is no need to continually update multiple sites. Furthermore, your analytics are immediately simplified since you only have one site to track.

In an increasingly mobile world, advancements like responsive web design can prove invaluable to your business. Although RWD may cost more initially to design and set up, the long-term benefits are invaluable. Responsive web design creates an innovative site so that your marketing endeavors can reach their full potential on every mobile device.

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In order to host your own website, you need an active internet connection and a database that is accessible from the internet that holds your website content. Many would argue that there are many more requirements, but this is basically all that is needed for someone to view your website. Now, the reliability, accessibility, and quality of the viewing experience can be greatly enhanced by adding in some more elements.

• If you are using a residential internet connection, chances are your IP (Internet Protocol) address is not static, which means it can change. So if I know the IP address of your website today, I can access it. However, if it was to expire tonight and I try to access it again tomorrow, I will not be able to if the address was changed by the ISP (Internet Service Provider). This happens frequently without the knowledge of the dynamic (changing) host.

• In addition, download speeds on consumer-grade lines are typically quite high, but the upload speeds are painfully slow, so if you have any pictures on your website, it will take quite some time for the page to load. This is frustrating for today’s internet browser. We are accustomed to pages that load very quickly, so when we come across a slow-loading page, we simply leave and find another page that doesn’t make us wait. It’s sad but true.

• Another factor to consider is the reliability of the website. If you are hosting a website at home or a place of business, chances are you have the website loading from a single computer, and if you’re smart, you will have a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) in case the power goes out. However, computers are known to crash and consumer-grade UPS’s backup power only lasts a couple of minutes. If your computer crashes or the power goes out for longer than your UPS can last, your website is inaccessible.

If you are determined to host your own website versus hiring a service provider and wish to maintain the level of reliability, accessibility, and quality that you would get, be ready to fork out some serious cash. You would need to purchase several static IP addresses, high upload bandwidth, backup generators, redundant servers, and networking equipment, and be ready to troubleshoot at a moment’s notice, night or day.

If you are still determined to host your own website but plan to do something simple like a little blog that only your family and friends will read, it’s still cheaper to use a blog-hosting service. If you are not concerned with reliability or quality, but you are with accessibility, you can register for a dynamic DNS address. This will give you a generic website name that will never change and stays current with your dynamic IP address. Your website will most likely be something like someothercompany.yourwebsite.com instead of www.yourwebsite.com or something along those lines.

If you’ve come to realize that using a web hosting service is in your best interest, there are a myriad of companies out there that provide web hosting. However, make sure you do your homework. There are a bunch of “companies” run by teenagers out of their basements, and other questionable organizations that may give you high upload speed, but lack redundancy or outage protection, or lacking in some other essential element. Do your research and choose a reputable company that has what it takes to host your website the way it should be. Global IT Communications is a premier web hosting provider.

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