ICatching Webs

Is Your Website Fully Responsive?

We at iCatching Webs have been asked many times what it means for your website to be fully responsive. Fully responsive, or a liquid design, means that the website design automatically adapts and looks great on different browser sizes, such as desktop, tablet and cell phone. So instead of needing a separate mobile site or mobile plugin, the content will be resized and rearranged to fit all screens. Responsive Web Design uses CSS, media queries, and HTML to resize, hide, shrink, enlarge, or move the content to make it look good on any screen. If you have to “pinch” view in on your cell phone than the responsiveness is not well done.

We’ve seen many websites and WordPress themes out there that claim to be “responsive”, but are indeed not. We’ve also tested some premium themes that claim to be responsive and they weren’t responsive either without adding media queries and several lines of CSS. Almost all responded to screen size but most didn’t adjust fonts well, Or did OK on landscape on Android but not in portrait.

The Biggest Problem:
The biggest problem with not having a mobile friendly and fully responsive site is that the major search engines have recently began indexing and ranking websites higher, that are only mobile friendly. Beginning on April 21, 2015, Google expanded their use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This means simply that if your site is mobile friendly, then they will index it HIGHER in the results, than a site that isn’t mobile friendly. This change affects mobile searches in all languages worldwide and has had a significant impact in search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.

Not sure if your website is mobile friendly in the eyes of Google? Take a quick test to see. This test will analyze your URL (web address) and report if your site has a mobile-friendly design. Click here to test your site: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

The Easiest Solution:
The easiest solution to your website’s lack of responsiveness and mobile friendliness is to simply hire iCatching Webs to custom redesign your site. At the same time, we will improve the look of your site with a custom-tailored fresh new look. We also optimize your entire site for the major search engines to make sure you rank better. Then we protect your site with a reliable backup system as well as add virus protection. Each of these are craftily done with every site that we build.

Read more about our awesome website services by clicking here: http://icatchingwebs.com/index.php/services/

Working on PJ’s Cafe in Irving, TX was a blast! We custom designed a fully responsive site that matched the style and colors of the cafe. We shot all of the photography for the site, including the food. We also tailored a daily special page that our client can easily modify daily. This page also posts to their page for more marketing coverage. We also custom designed an easy to modify food menu that our client can update quickly on the fly at any time.

See their website here: http://pjscafe2.icatchingwebsites.com

Do You Really Want to Build Your Own “Free” Site?

We’ve been designing a lot of websites lately and we’re starting to see some very common mistakes being made by small businesses. It goes without saying that your website is a reflection of your business and should be taken just as seriously as your storefront. One very common mistake is the use of “free” or cheap website building platforms like wix, weebly, or GoDaddy hosting templates.

Why should you avoid these platforms?

1. Design. Your site will look like many other’s site. Each of these sites give you a limited number of templates. While the design may come out looking pretty good, you will likely have a very similar design as a lot of other people. You will gravitate towards the template that looks the best on that platform. So will everyone else.

2. Control. You are putting a lot of faith into a hosted solution that can change their terms of service, go out of business, phase out support for certain templates and themes. Leaving you stuck with a dysfunctional site.

3. Limited Functionality. Hosted do-it-yourself website solutions often limit your ability to extend your websites functionality. Your website should have the flexibility to interact with any new social media channel that comes along. You simply cannot do that with most of these types of sites.

4. Search engine optimization. You are often very limited on how much you can optimize the on-page SEO factors. While in theory, you should be able to rank one of these types of sites at the top of Google, we rarely see these sites prominently ranked. For one, you are having to mask your domain and not use a quote regular “domain name. It is even worse if you are using the supplied domain name like mysite.wix.com.

So what should you do?
The immediate and best answer would be to allow us at iCatching Webs to build your website professionally. BUT, If you really want to tackle building your own site, our advice is to build your site on the self hosted version of WordPress. WordPress powers some of the most influential websites on the Internet. There are literally hundreds of thousands of beautiful templates to choose from. It is a known fact that Google loves WordPress sites. This fact alone makes it a clear winner. By carefully choosing some very powerful plug-ins, you can optimize your site for optimal ranking in Google.

You can interact with any social media channel, making your website the center of your online presence. While interacting on social media sites are good thing, you should not put your faith and investment of time into the sites alone as they often come and go in popularity. With a WordPress site, your investment in time creating content can stand the test of time and you can reap the benefits indefinitely. In short, you can have your cake and eat it too!

At iCatching Webs we build all of our client’s websites on the WordPress platform. Over the 20 years span, we have used most every web platform out there. We can do virtually anything with your new or improved website with the help of our experienced designer and developer.

See some of our website work here: http://icatchingwebs.com/index.php/portfolio/