Nowadays the number of mobile users has surpassed the number of people using laptops or desktops for browsing the Internet. That is the reason almost 90% of websites have responsive web design which allows them to be viewed smoothly on all devices like smartphones, tablets and laptops.
Another reason for website owners to opt for responsive web design is that Google gives mobile responsive websites first priority in search engines. Responsive web design also brings a ton of benefits to their SEO.
Here we will discuss the 7 ways in which responsive web design impacts SEO.
1) It will help you to get more mobile traffic
Increased mobile traffic is the first and possibly the best result of responsive web design. Mobile browsing is continuously increasing for years now and as per a report in the year 2016, mobile browsing surpasses desktop browsing with more than 51.3% leads. Thus we can say that mobile optimization has become the Industry standard as smart phones have become the main focus for developers now.
So if you opt for responsive web design for your website, then you will open the door for a large number of Internet users nowadays which will automatically improve your SEO score.
2) Google mobile’s first Index
Google now uses the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking.This means that websites that are responsive and work properly on mobile devices get first priority in the ranking and indexing process. Because of this a responsive website reaches more people automatically and has higher chances of ranking in Google.So website owners are opting for responsive website design to get their website ranked easily.
3) Improved Site Usability
Google recognizes web page loading speed as one of the vital indicators for a website’s value to a given query. This is because if users cannot navigate your website properly, then it is evident that they will not stay on your website for a longer time nor will they visit your website again.
Responsive web design plays a major role here as it makes a website much simpler for visitors to navigate and read. Thus responsive web design provides improved site usability and it is vital for providing a positive user experience. And website owners are very particular when it comes to customer experience since it results in higher conversion rates and positive reviews and higher traffic highly impact website ranking.So they are mostly switching to responsive web design.
Therefore we can say that customer journey and customer experience are the basics of success of online businesses and responsive web design is the foundation of all these. Google also rewards websites that provide its users with such a pleasant experience.
4) Faster loading speed
Web page loading speed is an established and vital SEO factor. One should optimize his website for faster loading speed in order to remove the odds of it ranking well in SERPs.
Google is giving us a consistent message over the years that faster loading websites are extremely favored in search engine results and that is why it is recommending website owners to switch to responsive web design. This is because responsive websites load faster especially in smart devices and results in providing a positive user experience.
5) Decreased bounce rate
Website visits absolutely mean nothing if your bounce rate is extremely high. This is because if your bounce rate is high then visitors are visiting your website but they are soon abandoning it due to its overall poor experience. So a lot of reputed SEO agencies recommend website owners to opt for responsive web design as a means of minimizing the bounce rate and improving the ranking of the website.
Though keep in mind that bounce rate is an unreliable factor as it depends on the kind of website you have.
For example: As per conversion XL, content websites get upto 40% to 60% bounce rate. Services sites get upto 30% and blog sites get upto 90%.
6) Boosted social sharing
Responsive web design makes social sharing extremely easy for mobile users and smart devices users. Though social shares do not have a major impact on ranking, it mainly helps to grow the audience. A larger audience will bring you more traffic and engagement and also increase the number of search demand for your brand. And all these have a major impact on your website ranking.
An unoptimized will fail to convince users in navigating the poorly designed sharing buttons that are only designed for desktop use.
7) No duplicate content
This is one of the major benefits of responsive web design on SEO. Responsive web design will prevent Google from seeing any kind of duplicate content on your website and penalizing you for that.
The confusion arises when a website owner makes two different versions of his website and it appears to Google as two different websites with the same content.This will cause the website to get penalized.
Responsive web design will allow you to use only one website design that corresponds to all of the sizes and will help save your website from getting penalized. In addition to that, when Google will see that a website owner has only one link for all the versions of his website, it will reward that website with better search engine rankings.
Conclusion,
In the end we can say that if you provide your users a positive user experience then it will automatically have a major impact on the SEO score of your website. So opting for responsive website design is the main thing to do for a website owner in order to get good ranking on SERPs.
Therefore, it will be better for you to reach out to a company providing top-quality responsive web design and SEO services in India to get the benefits of responsive web design on your SEO rankings