The Importance of Making Your Website Responsive

By Karen Preston-Loeb

We previously wrote about Furia Rubel’s approach to responsive website design. Today, it has become even more important to provide your website visitors with tailored mobile, tablet and desktop configurations. Google now gives preference to mobile-friendly pages by boosting their ranking in mobile search results. While this affects individual pages instead of entire websites, adjusting your organization’s website to be responsive makes good business sense.

What is Responsive Website Design?

A “responsive” website is one in which the page layout acclimates proportionally as you shrink or expand a screen. When a user views the website on a desktop computer, the screen size is generally larger. When a visitor uses a tablet or smartphone, the screen size will scale and shrink appropriately to fit the display of that device. On a non-responsive website, information may be lost as the visual area gets smaller. Responsive websites adapt to allow users to see all pertinent material and to navigate easily to the information they want to view.

Having a responsive website is helpful for a few reasons. It provides the user – who might be a potential client, a current customer or a referral source – with navigation to obtain information on your organization quickly and easily. A frustrated user could lead to a loss of business.

Mobile Has Surpassed Desktop 

Ensuring that mobile website visitors have a positive experience is more important than ever. In recent years, the number of web visits coming from mobile devices has increased steadily. In May 2015, Google confirmed what most digital observers already suspected, that more people now browse the internet on mobile devices than on desktop computers.

The search engine responded to that behavior by giving preference to mobile-friendly web pages in the algorithms that determine which websites appear highest in search results. To see how Google Search views your website pages, run your website URL through Google’s mobile-friendly test.

Today, websites that adapt to deliver visitors a positive experience on every size screen are a necessary part of doing business. Don’t let Google penalize your company for not being mobile-friendly. Consider updating your website to responsive design.

Optimizing Search Engine Marketing (SEM) for Mobile with AdWords Enhanced Campaigns

By Laura Powers

Google recently announced their intention to combine AdWords desktop and mobile search through AdWords enhanced campaigns. This means that one search advertisement and keyword bid will be shown on both desktop and mobile, allowing businesses to streamline their ad campaigns to target audiences.

With these changes, every Google paid advertisement has the potential to be viewed on a mobile device. All signs point to a steady increase in mobile device usage among internet users. Now, more than ever, it is important to ensure that marketing campaigns and online initiatives are optimized for mobile where appropriate.

Measuring and tracking marcom initiatives is always critical. With this shift in AdWords, a phone based call-to-action in tandem with a URL based call-to-action is imperative. By inserting unique phone numbers as well as unique URLs that are trackable, AdWord campaign performance can be measured and leads can be examined. Campaigns can then be systematically evaluated over time for effectiveness.

Furia Rubel typically recommends the Marchex platform for phone number consolidation and tracking. As Marchex users, our clients are able to delegate separate phone numbers for Adword campaigns, print advertisement campaigns, company websites and other marketing initiatives. Phone calls are a natural response to an online ad displayed on a mobile phone. Optimizing AdWord campaigns with unique phone numbers, as well as URLs, will be a necessity for search engine marketing as we move through 2013 and beyond.