the-rise-in-mobile-phone-use-cries-for-responsive-wp-themesSo many businesses are beginning to dabble with building their own websites because of the availability of WordPress themes that are completely user friendly and little to no knowledge is needed to get them up and running. This is in their most basic forms, however, but if money is tight, it is possible to begin making your presence known on the web with a little effort and a ton of patience! One thing you might want to do is hire a bespoke design because if your site isn’t tailored for mobile phone users, you could be losing out on a high percentage of organic traffic.

What Is a Responsive Theme?

When you land on a page from a desktop, it appears differently than when you get there via a mobile phone. Most desktop versions of a page are larger, take up more bandwidth so are slower to load and are just too busy for a tiny mobile phone screen. A responsive theme is one that automatically determines what type of screen the user will be viewing the site on and resizes the page accordingly in terms of content as well as physical size.

Why Are Responsive Themes Necessary?

Let’s face it. There are very few people who don’t own and use a mobile phone whereas in previous years they were often cost prohibitive. Today high end phones can be passed along from user to user as each upgrades and if they have different carriers, no problem. Companies such as Unlocking Smart can unlock the phone so it can be transferred to a new carrier and now both people have great phones they can use with their own service.

So, what does this have to do with responsive themes? Everything! Today’s consumer is more likely to embark on product and company searches from their mobile device than from a desktop. Statistics compiled by Google prompted them to change their algorithms because of the fact that so many searchers are conducting mobile searches. To enhance the mobile user experience, Google has begun ignoring sites that aren’t mobile friendly. If you build a WordPress website that can’t be viewed optimally on a mobile phone, Google will not list you in the SERPs and you will lose out on all that potential traffic.

Ease at Which You Can Update Your Site

If you already have WordPress on your site and it is not mobile-friendly, it is not a problem. There are various free (and paid!) plugins out there that you can use to make all or most of your current design responsive. Of course you can always hire a web development company that specializes in WP to build a responsive theme for you, but if finances are tight, a plugin should at least allow you to convert key landing pages to a mobile-friendly format.

Don’t lose out on all that traffic just because you aren’t familiar with optimizing WP for mobile phones. Plenty of help is out there on WordPress forums, there are plugins that are easy to use that will handle the conversions and if all else fails, the UK has tons of web developers who are able to help you make the transition. The key idea is to capture the mobile market in order to grow your own.