Google, Madison Web Design, and Mobile Devices

While it’s our job to design websites, we also work to educate the men and women that we work with about the finer points of maintaining their websites and attracting customers from the Internet. That’s why we’re making sure businesses know just how important it is to upgrade to a responsive web design. It’s our job as a leading Madison web design team to remind them that the mobile market is bigger than you might think.
In case you aren’t sure why it’s such a big deal to upgrade to a responsive website, let us walk you through web design and mobile devices…
There are no excuses for not having mobile optimization in 2017
You may have heard that, nationwide, mobile web users (people going online on their phones and tablets) make up a majority on the Internet. That is, there are more people visiting websites right now from mobile devices than there are laptop and desktop computers. Mobile traffic surpassed desktop traffic back in 2014 with many industry experts expecting two-thirds of traffic to come from mobile traffic alone in 2020.
Those are some pretty important facts when you think about where the Internet currently stands, and where it’s headed. It’s even more important in our community, though. In a college town like Madison (or for that matter, Milwaukee and some of the other Wisconsin communities we serve), the prevalence of mobile users is a lot higher than average. When we look at mobile usage more closely, we can even see the mobile usage is highest between the hours of 7 am and 10 am, prime hours for productivity. That’s a pretty big incentive to update your website for mobile friendliness if you do business in Madison. But as it turns out, there is an even more urgent reason.
Google Ignores Non-Mobile Website
If you were already thinking about all the people using phones and tablets to go online, imagine how much the engineers at Google think about it. That’s why they’ve made mobile functionality a part of their core search algorithm.
What that means to you, in essence, is that the world’s largest search engine will essentially ignore your website (at least for mobile queries) if your pages aren’t responsive. If your website does not present itself well on a small screen, you can’t expect to show up in search results on a mobile device. The potential buyers that you see browsing on their iPhones, Androids, and Kindles are going to find their way to a competitor.
Given that there is a very strong link between mobile computing and local shopping, that could be especially devastating if most of your customers live and work around Madison. If they can’t find you online, they probably won’t find you elsewhere.
Is it Time for a Mobile-Friendly Upgrade in Madison?
The fact that most of your customers use mobile devices should be reason enough for you to upgrade your website. Now, Google is giving you an extra nudge in the right direction. If you’re ready to stop losing business to the competition – and improve your marketing reach – then contact the Tingalls team today to find out why our clients call us the best web design company in Madison.