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.

Myth-Busting SEO Techniques and Theories

By Megan Quinn

There are many different theories and myths about the best ways to create and maintain great search engine optimization results, called SEO. But that’s the problem; there are too many myths. How can we separate fiction from fact and better optimize our respective websites on Google search? Let’s see…by listening to advice from someone who works at Google.

Matt Cutts, Head of Google Search Spam, has seen various SEO techniques, ads and fluff sites used during the nearly 14 years he has spent with the company. He uploaded a video to YouTube in April of last year to call out the biggest SEO myths he had heard of at the time, but most of those myths are still believed to this day.

One of those myths is, “if you buy ads you’ll rank higher on Google.” That would be false, he says. Cutts says there also is an opposing theory that says if you don’t buy ads you will rank higher on Google. This also would be false, according to Cutts. He says that Google wants only to return great search results to the users and it is only about making the users happy. Why is that? So they will keep coming back to Google for answers, of course.

Sorry to disappoint you, Google conspiracy theorists!

Google and other search engines often change the algorithms that control what websites are displayed as the results of a search. Some of those changes are minor and some are major.
According to a recent article on PR Daily, Google’s algorithm tweaks continue to work to filter out the spammy websites that gamed SEO by stuffing keywords and other “black hat” tactics once used to claim the top search results spots.  As a result of those changes in recent years, the content (like press releases based on actual news, for example) with true depth can actually break the surface.

The truth is, one simple theory or approach will not guarantee that certain websites show up at the top of page one of a Google search. Many factors contribute to better search results – as many as 200 – and improving a website’s SEO is a long process.

What does this mean for companies that recognize the importance of good SEO? It means that investing in good writing has never been more important. Creating both textual and visual content that appeals to your target audience, and sharing it through integrated public relations and marketing, will help companies get found on the web – no myths necessary.

Leveraging Website Content for Maximum Engagement

Vice President of Marketing, Laura Powers, presented a live webinar for Avvo on August 8, 2013 from 10-11 a.m. PDT (1-2 p.m. EST) where she addressed how to engage your website visitors by maximizing website content.

Laura covered:

• Steps to developing content to generate leads
• How to take to make your website more engaging for visitors
• Best practices for content organization and development
• Tactics for helping target audiences find your site

This webinar included discussions on search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), content development, website design and more.

Hear a replay of this webinar and view the slides here.