In the years past a website used to be just an accessory that made your business look legit, professional. Along with your physical address, telephone and fax numbers, your website address looked good on your business cards and letterhead. The business itself happened almost exclusively offline.

Those days are long gone.

Today you not only need a good website, you need one that is mobile friendly. Web designers must now adopt a responsive web design mindset whenever they sit down and plan a website build.

It is no longer enough to have a website that looks good on desktops only. The mobile version must pop too. Web development as we know it is changing.

Responsive Web Design Is The New Standard

With Google moving to a mobile first algorithm it is no longer in doubt that web design as we know it must also adapt. Mobile first simply means Google will use the mobile version of your site for both indexing and ranking.

Google’s shift to mobile-first indexing has serious implications for your business as a crappy, unnavigable mobile version of your site can mean a drop in rankings, making it that much more difficult for your business to be found online.

And with more than half of your customers accessing your site from a mobile device, a non mobile friendly website simply means you are not catering to the needs of the majority of your current and potential customers.

Current statistics also show that mobile visitors have more ecommerce intent. If you run an ecommerce business, there is no easier way to put it, if your site is not mobile friendly, you are going to find it very hard to compete.

Websites Display Differently on Mobile Devices

The way websites display on desktop just does not work on mobile. And with more people accessing your website from a mobile device than a desktop PC, it makes sense that you ensure your site displays all the essentials elements clearly on mobile as it does on desktop. This is what responsive web design is about.

Mobile screens are small, which places a greater challenge on website designers and developers to make the best use of the limited real estate. They must now be more scrupulous with their choice of typography and image sizes.

Your Web Copy and Content Must be Optimized for Mobile

Already we see some web designers using bolder and more creative typography on mobile sites to make sure they pop. Beyond the aesthetic elements of your site, the content itself must be optimized for mobile devices.

The font sizes must be big enough to read on mobile. Your copywriters and content writers must train themselves on what it means to write for not only the web, but for the mobile web. Sentences and paragraphs must be shorter so your content won’t appear as walls of text on mobile devices.

Even Newer Trends Emerging As The Scope of the Mobile Web Grows

Going forward, as the mobile web grows; we are seeing new trends emerging. Web developers are experimenting with more dynamic ways of displaying menus and rendering content. We are seeing on-screen toggle that ensure a cleaner look and are more space efficient gaining more popularity.

They are also looking at ways of making elongated menus on vertical mobile displays less obtrusive and more responsive by making sure they display all the items without filling the whole screen.

Webmasters Group is Web Development & Designing Company serving clients in Melbourne and beyond. We aim to build fully responsive websites that are optimized for both search and conversion. Contact us and let us help build your next site.