4 Crucial Reasons Why Your Resort Needs a Responsive Website

Posted on Sep 24th 2014 in Hotel Marketing

There’s no denying it: you need a mobile-optimised site. With global mobile internet usage expected to hit 90% by 2017, failing to make your content easily accessible across all devices won’t just cause a headache for your guests, it’ll lose you masses of booking opportunities.

Still not convinced? In this post we’ll look at 4 key reasons creating a mobile responsive website is crucial to your resort’s online marketing success.

What’s the difference between a mobile website and responsive design?

There are two commonly used methods for creating websites than can be accessed by mobile devices: responsive design and mobile websites.

A mobile website is a completely separate version of your desktop site, purpose-built to be viewed exclusively on mobile devices. Generally speaking, the mobile version will only include a limited number of your original website’s pages, but it will contain a link directing users to the full site.

In contrast, a responsive designed website is built to be viewed on desktop, smartphones and tablets. There is just one website, which adapts to suit the screen dimensions of whatever device your guests are using to browse.

The benefits of implementing responsive design can not be overlooked.

1) User experience is everything

According to guidelines issued by Google in 2013, in order to deliver the best possible user experience, webmasters need to aim for a one second (or less!) loading speed for above-the-fold content. In other words, to keep users engaged and minimise disruption to their browsing flow, any content which is immediately visible without scrolling should be ready to view in one second, while the rest of the site continues to load in the background.

Failing to follow these guidelines to create the optimal user experience can result in a serious blow to your bookings. Google’s research shows that there’s a 61% chance mobile users will leave a site immediately if it is slow and difficult to use on their device. When presented with a positive mobile user experience however, users said that they are 67% more likely to buy.

2) Blogging, social media and mobile go hand in hand

If you blog regularly and have proactively incorporated elements of social media into your resort’s strategy, it’s likely that you’ll have noticed an increase in mobile traffic.

A 2013 study found by ComScore found that 55% of social media consumption takes place using a mobile device.

With that in mind, if you’re frequently sharing links to your social content and blog posts, but don’t have a mobile friendly website, you can expect to see two things: high bounce rates and low conversion rates. Your mobile savvy audience will soon lose patience, too.

3) Responsive design = better SEO

Google has stated that it prefers responsive designed websites over mobile templates. With just one URL, responsive websites are easier for the company’s search spiders to crawl, and there’s less chance of on-page SEO errors occurring.

4) Responsive sites are ready for future devices

One of the primary benefits of a responsive website over a mobile site is that the template is designed to adapt to screen size, not device type. This means that your content will display correctly no matter what size screen your guests are using to view your site, and your branding, colour scheme, calls to action and site layout will appear consistent across all devices.

Moving forward, it also means that as more and more new devices hit the market, your site will continue to perform optimally and look great whether it’s being viewed via desktop, mobile, TV, watch or glasses!

Ensuring your resort has a mobile-friendly website is no longer an ‘extra’; it’s a necessity that has a knock-on effect on your booking rates and the growth of your business.

Have you implemented responsive design yet? Is it something you are planning to do in the future? Let us know in the comments below!