Whether you are a do-it-yourself web designer or outsource web design, there is a decision you must make about how you can best present your products or services online.   

Should you design one website for desktop viewers and a different design for those who search online with a mobile device? Would it be better to just design a single website that responds to the screen of the device being used for browsing? Google respects both ideas, but tends to lean toward responsive web site design. Responsive web design can eliminate unnecessary duplication and actually add credibility to your blog and website content.

Two Versions Of A Website Usually Involve Duplicate Content

A common practice of web designers is to just copy the content from the main site to the mobile version of the site. There could be a serious problem here. When the Panda algorithm update was released, websites and blogs that contained duplicated content were considered “low-value” and were devalued in search results. Could this situation actually destroy the credibility of the mobile site? It would seem to be a more effective content marketing strategy to just have one website that would accommodate all devices. It is also much easier to keep one website current and properly optimized.

Two Versions Of A Website Means Duplicate SEO Efforts

It certainly takes enough time, money, and effort to properly do app store optimization and to optimize our main website. Do we really want to double the cost and the time to go through the same SEO efforts on a mobile version? By designing a website in a way that is responsive to the device being used, all SEO strategies and social network marketing on the main site will also apply to the mobile version.

Above All Else – Google Respects Responsive Web Design

With control of about two-thirds of the search market and over 30 trillion web addresses, it might just make sense to listen to what Google has to say about responsive web design. According to Google Developers, responsive web design is actually recommended for a number of reasons including:

Improves crawling efficiency helping to index more of the sites content

Single URL for web content makes it easier for users to interact with, share, and link to web content

The nature of the search is definitely changing and web designers must learn to change as well. Basically, if you have a website for desktop viewing and a separate mobile version, you have two websites. Simply copying content from one site to the other may be a waste of valuable time. Maintaining two sites requires you to duplicate everything, from content creation, SEO, link building, maintenance, and promotion. You just may want to consider designing one high-value website with responsive capabilities to make life a lot easier.

This blog was designed using a responsive template, so you should be able to view it on your desktop or mobile device. If you can’t, please let us know.

If your business website needs more personality or a web content tune-up, we can help. Learn about our custom web design services or contact us with questions.