The number of people accessing the world wide web using smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices is rapidly growing. In fact, mobile devices have already overtaken PC sales and are expected to overtake Internet use as well in the near future. But what does this have to do with search engine optimisation (SEO)? A lot!

Why Optimise Your Website For Mobile Users

Just because you are ranked high on Google and other major search engines that doesn’t necessarily mean you have made it. In order to make the most out of your online presence, you need to attract your visitors’ attention. Then, you need to make it as easy as possible on them to navigate your website and purchase your products. Remember, mobiles sales have surpassed those made via PCs. But besides encouraging your website’s visitors to purchase from you, optimising your website for mobile users will also help you rank higher in search engine results pages (SERP) by lowering your bounce rate. So with each day you postpone mobile optimisation, you are losing potential buyers and risk losing your SERP position. Obviously, you don’t want either of both.

Responsive Web Design Vs Separate Mobile Website

To reach the mobile audience, attract their attention and encourage them to make a purchase, you have two options. You can either have your current website design made responsive, that is to adjust to various devices and screen sizes or leave your website the way it is and launch a separate mobile site to serve mobile users. Google is fine with both options although most people got an impression that the world No.1 search engine prefers responsive web design over separate mobile website. And so do we for the following reasons:

• Friendlier for users. Regardless from which device and screen size the website is accessed, it is always optimised for ultimate user experience. In addition, it is a lot easier to interact and share a website with other users if you are dealing with a single website all the time.

• Friendlier for search engines. Obviously, you want your website to be friendly for search engines. A responsive web design is just that because the entire content is on a single URL. As a result, responsive web design makes it a lot easier for search engines to crawl and index your content.

• Easier for SEO. Responsive web design offers two advantages over creating a separate mobile website with respect to SEO. Firstly, you don’t have to launch two separate campaigns which reduces both the time and money needed to benefit from your SEO campaign. And secondly, you can expect better results because all efforts are focused on one rather than two separate websites.