We’re all familiar with abandoned New Year’s resolutions.

Everyone has dropped the ball (so to speak) on at least one real, honest-to-goodness, I’m-really-gonna-do-it-this-time-guys resolution in their life. That is, of course, unless you abstain from them altogether. Or unless you’re lying.

But even if you do abstain and even if you haven’t ever failed yourself spectacularly, there’s one resolution that you should absolutely make for your business in 2016: bringing your website into the new age of responsive design.

A New Responsive Age

What is the “new age” of responsive design? Well, it started this past year with one big event: Google’s search engine algorithm change. In April of 2015, Google gave search ranking preference to mobile-friendly websites. This means that mobile responsiveness now directly weights the sites on search engine results pages.

Some popular search engine optimization resources creatively dubbed the launch of the new algorithm “mobilegeddon”, as it was due to upset search rankings more than any other algorithm change in recent history.

The new algorithm was followed shortly by the intriguing (but not surprising) news that local search queries were now more numerous on mobile devices than on desktop devices. Further, there’s every indication that we’ll see mobile increase its share of total local searches every year for the foreseeable future.

It’s the combination of these two facts—Google’s mobile-friendly algorithm and the new mobile search majority—that indicate that a new age has begun. We now live in an age where responsive design isn’t just a very important factor in search engine optimization; it is, in fact, the most important factor. If most people are searching locally on mobile devices and mobile-friendly websites are highly favored in their search results, how can mobile responsiveness be ignored any longer?

Time’s Up

The answer is that mobile responsive design cannot be ignored any longer. If there’s one business resolution you make and fulfill this year, it needs to be to get a mobile responsive website up and running. The fact of the matter is that if your business’ website isn’t responsive, you’re missing out on potential customers.

The landscape has shifted below our feet and we’re all standing in a new world. Now is the perfect time to stand out from the crowd. Get ahead of your competitors and give your customers what they very clearly want. If you don’t start pulling in mobile customers now, you’ll be just another face in the crowd when everyone and their grandma has a responsive website—and that time isn’t very far off.

If you’re interested in mobile responsive website (re)design, West County Net can help. Fill out the form below or give us a call today at 707-755-5857!

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Get in touch to get started on a mobile responsive website design or redesign!