The date is April 21st, 2015. Google, in all its data-driven wisdom, rolls out a massive update forever changing the way websites are ranked during mobile search results. A large rift is created, separating small & mid-sized businesses from their precious organic search results. In a survey made just one year prior, 91% of small business' websites were not optimized for mobile use. Thankfully, about 50% of their traffic could still find them on desktop computers.

The date is now November 04, 2016 : Google announces “Mobile-First Indexing”; a now familiar concept. This time, however, it’s set to affect all searches. Companies being searched for on desktop computers will now be ranked using their mobile performances.

Their #1 recommendation to adapt to mobile-first indexing? Responsive web design.

Responsiveness will allow your website to load quickly on mobile devices. Sounds boring? Think again. We’re all getting faster phones, Wi-Fi and cell networks; the patience of mobile web users is a fickle thing. Mobile loading time is a major contributing factor to page abandonment. To give you a larger scale idea: if your e-commerce site is making $100,000 per day, a 1 second page delay could potentially cost you $2.5 million in lost sales every year. Talk about making every second count.

It’s cost & time effective. The alternative to a responsive website, one which we haven’t mentioned yet, is a costly one: create two websites. That’s right. Without using responsive design, you would have to specifically create separate versions of your website. This means twice the development time, twice the content creation, twice the debugging and (most likely) twice the cost. If you aren’t discouraged by the idea yet, think about website updates. Every new product, blog posts, photos or store information changes would have to be entered and tested twice.

Testing your mobile-friendliness

How important is mobile-friendliness (and by direct relation, responsive design)? Do a Google search for “mobile friendly” and see for yourself. That box at the top of the page, asking you “Is your web page mobile friendly?” sends your website through a series of tests to see if it’s up to snuff.

Conclusion

A responsive website will make you stand out and will stand the test of time. Nowadays, it’s not a luxury, but rather a necessity. Investing in your website is important; whether it’s precious time by doing it yourself or money by having someone else design it for you. You need to make sure you’re not throwing either of those two out of the window.

Ready for a responsive design?