Responsive web designs are the lifeline for many businesses because Google loves them. The leading search engine actually appreciates an optimal viewing experience across a range of devices, from desktops to your handsets. And this is what responsive designs do. Beyond that, these designs significantly affect their organic visibility and ranking.
This post will take you on a journey through the amazing impacts of responsive web layouts on SEO performance. You will have a lot more things to optimize and leverage a responsive design for your business. Before that, let’s introduce what typically responsive web designs are.
Understanding Responsive Web Design
A responsive web design is a frontend or layout that automatically fits different screen sizes and orientations (horizontal or vertical). Simply put, the web layout that seamlessly appears on the desktop, mobile phones, iPad, or any other device is a responsive design. Seamless design here means optimized images, content, navigation, buttons, or anything appearing on the screen. Majorly, this kind of web design is built through fluid grids, flexible images, optimized media queries, etc. These are the main components that enable a website to resize or reformat according to the screen’s dimensions.
Impact of Responsive Web Designs on SEO Performance
Certainly, a responsive web layout adds multiple SEO benefits. Let’s understand in brief below.
- Enhancing User Experience
For Google, a seamless and smooth user experience is a priority. Likewise, it expects websites to be fully optimized, which means that their loading times are fast, navigation is easy, and the content is readable on various devices. A study by Google found that 53% of mobile users bounce out of sites that take longer than three seconds to load. A responsive layout ensures it and, hence, efficiently uploads on all devices swiftly. This quality impacts users, who become able to spend more time engaging with the website. The longer they stay on the website, the more likely they are to inquire or make a purchase. This long dwell time signals Google to rank it up in the search engine rankings. This is how the impact of responsive web designs becomes clearly visible on the SEO performance of websites.
- Mobile-First Indexing
Mobile-first indexing was actually an update from Google, which increased the significance of responsive web layouts. Once introduced, it predominantly uses the mobile version of the website for indexing and ranking online. The statistics for 2020 state that over 60% of Google searches start on mobile devices. It clearly indicates the importance of mobile optimization. On the contrary, non-friendly websites struggle to shine at the top position on SERPs. Their online traffic and visibility do not increase.
- Improved Site Usability
The third impact can be seen in the usability of the responsive design. It provides a consistent and intuitive experience for all users across various devices. If it’s flawlessly designed, it can adjust navigation, images, and content layout according to the length and breadth of the screen. This is how users feel about interacting with the site. A report by Adobe presented that 38% of people won’t engage if the content or layout is unattractive, which obviously the unstructured layout looks like. It increases usability, which can be capitalized through longer session durations, lower bounce rates, and higher engagement rates. These all represent the positive impact of SEO performance.
- Reduced Bounce Rates
The bounce rate defines the percentage of visitors who bounce out of the site after visiting only one page. If it’s high, it is a red flag for the ranking and visibility of the website. Google bots signal that the website may not be providing valuable information to users. Responsive web designs significantly reduce this rate by providing a glitch-free web journey, regardless of the device they are using. According to Think with Google, mobile users are 62% less likely to come from a responsive website as compared to a non-responsive one.
- Faster Page Load Times
When a user clicks a link on the search page, he expects fast results. And certainly, Google does it by selecting the ones that meet users’ expectations with fast loading. This clearly means that the search engine considers loading speed crucial. That’s why you hardly see slow-landing pages ranking at the top. Responsive designs include page speed optimization, which eliminates the need for redirection to a separate mobile website. This approach minimizes server response times, and, hence, narrows down the amount of data to be reloaded.
- Simplified Website Management
People often maintain desktop and mobile websites separately. However, managing a single responsive site is a more efficient approach. It reduces the time and effort to manage two different sites, their elements, and their content, ensuring their consistency across all devices.
Managing two sites can create the challenge of duplicate or thin content, which often confuses search engines. It also negatively impacts SEO efforts. A responsive layout can help in resolving these matters, which allows search engines to crawl and index a single version.
- Improved Local SEO
Local SEO is beneficial for getting brand recognition in a specific geo-location, which also increases footfall in stores. A responsive design can be helpful in enhancing local SEO efforts and the user experience for those who are searching for any local store or premises. Interestingly, Google’s algorithms prioritize mobile-friendly websites for local searches. This is where the responsive website wins a cutting edge. Even Google has found that 76% of people, who search for something on their smartphone visit a related business within a day. It clearly proves that a responsive website is valuable for capturing local traffic and improving overall SEO performance.
Conclusion
A responsive website design is vital for online visibility and top ranking. It ensures an excellent user experience by providing improved navigation and website views. It also reduces bounce rates and page loading times. As the leading search engine prioritizes responsive designs for indexing, it is necessary to increase mobile traffic. It helps in attaining overwhelming traffic, which eventually attracts top ranking.
Author Bio
Alex is a search engine marketing and optimization (SEO) expert working at Eminenture Technologies with practical experience. He is creating incredible strategies to increase visibility, top ranking in SERPS, and encouraging leads through a website. His skills and expertise in defining success through end-to-end digital marketing have been seen in many cases across various companies.
