Creating the best mobile experience for web users is still in its relative infancy and even the big guys have quite a bit of room for improvement. According to a recent Search Agency Mobile Score Card Report, the top web-only retailers don’t stack up. They scored the top 100 web-only retailers and found the average to be 2.8 out of 5 points. The study looked load times, site format, shopping cart, social media interaction and more.

Part of the problem could be that we are trying to fit a square peg (desktop sites) into a round hole (mobile sites). It is possible to allow the desktop version of a site to render on a mobile device, but is that truly optimizing for mobile? Not really.

According to the Search Agency, responsive web design is the ideal way to “future-proof” your site. But this can be costly as it is fairly labor intensive on existing sites.   But, it may be worth the investment. Using a responsive web design will ensure that your content fits all screens on all devices.

Why responsive design?

It’s not just a matter of designing and managing a desktop version and iPhone version of your website. You have to have a Galaxy version, iPad version, Microsoft Surface version, and so on.   You get the picture. It is completely impractical to develop much less manage and keep current enough versions of a website to fit all the various screen sizes and device options that consumers use to surf the Internet. And the numbers keep growing. The answer then, is to use a design format that can adapt to the different devices and screen sizes. This is the essence of responsive design.

Optimizing for mobile is not an option. The world has shifted to mobile and if you don’t shift with it you will lose. Having a responsive website is also a big help to your SEO strategy as Google is paying close attention to how your site performs in a mobile environment and will reward your efforts.