Responsive website design is a way you can create a website so that all of the elements on the web page can automatically scale the content on them to match the size of the screen they are being viewed on. This stops the images from being larger than the width of the screen and it stops your content from being annoying to read.
The ultimate goal behind a responsive website design is the make your website’s viewing experience as smooth as possible. It reduces the need for unnecessary zooming, resizing, or scrolling that can happen when a website has not been optimised for various devices. Often, it can be difficult to view a website on your mobile if it hasn’t been optimised. It makes prospective customers frustrated and they stop viewing the website altogether.
If you don’t have a responsive website, here’s why you should think of getting one.
It Increases Traffic from Mobile Visitors
At one point in time, businesses had to create two different versions of the same website. One was for desktop users and the other was dedicated to mobile phone users. Several businesses still follow this approach. But since an increasing number of people are using their smartphone to access search engines, creating two different versions of one website can take a lot of maintenance and it can be time-consuming as well.
Now, you can have one responsive website that can be viewed on every device. With this strategy, you can retain those precious views from mobile. Better yet, users may consider visiting your website again if they want to scroll through the services you’re offering.
An Improved Website Experience
The user’s overall experience is an important thing to consider. Every website owner wants that their visitors to like their website. A good website convinces the visitor to visit it again, which will also convince your target market to give your products or services a chance.
Since mindless scrolling and zooming will be on the low, the content you post can be consumed easily, and your website’s overall experience will be a lot more positive.
Easier to Manage
Several businesses (usually smaller ones) don’t have the necessary time to refresh or update the visuals of their website. While they may consider hiring a website designer to handle every little aspect, a responsive website design rids you of this worry. When the design is responsive, you can make changes yourself easily and quickly.
And since you only have one website to look after, devoting time to other marketing-related functions is going to be a lot easier. This way, you’ll never have to wonder if you should link your desktop website or mobile website to a social media post or question if your redirects are going to the same website. When a website is responsive, stress levels remain low.
Lower Cost to Maintain Website
Another advantage of using a responsive website is that maintenance costs can reduce drastically. Since you’re only running one website now compared to two, you don’t have to spend money maintaining two websites. Even though getting a responsive website built can be relatively expensive at the start, the reduced cost of managing two websites will begin to add up.
Moreover, it takes less time to set up as well since one is easier to maintain than maintaining two different versions. This frees up more time for you which you can utilize to offer tailor-made locational offers from your website.
Adapting to Every Screen Size
Another advantage of having a responsive website is its ability to adapt to the dimensions of any device it is being viewed on. If you have a design like such, you’re miles ahead of the competition. This positions your website in a way so that it caters to different users surfing the internet.
They may be viewing your website on a smartwatch, a smart TV, a tablet, or a phone and it’s imperative your website can adapt to all of these different devices.
But one of the most prominent reasons why a responsive website design matters is:
It Improves Your Website’s Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search engine optimisation is a strategy several companies and businesses use to boost their organic rankings on Google. The closer you are to the top, the higher the chances of prospective customers finding you. Since search engine optimisation doesn’t cost you money, almost every business trying to build an online presence takes a crack at it, but only a few are able to succeed.
Because of this reason, getting an edge over the competition with a responsive website design can improve your online performance fourfold. Moreover, you can also expect to attract more mobile phone users to your website since a responsive website design attracts them.
Google’s Recommendations
In 2015, Google introduced recommendations that were related to a responsive website design. As a result, Google started rewarding websites that were holistically optimised for mobile devices. This also meant that they were now using mobile-friendliness as a metric to rank websites of search engine results pages.
Since this announcement has been made, websites have started to give preference to mobile-friendliness, but nowadays, Google has improved its recommendations substantially.
Recently, Google has started using mobile-first strategies for indexing. The mobile-first indexing approach bases a website’s ranking and its indexing on its mobile version, compared to the desktop version. So if your website has a responsive design, you won’t have to make any changes. Later in 2018, Google also announced that it was migrating websites that adhered to the best practices of mobile-first indexing.
Previously, Google had indexed and crawled a website’s desktop version, but very soon, the company noticed this practice was creating problems for people using a mobile. This means that not only is it imperative you have a responsive website design, but it is also important that your website has a stellar mobile design.
Conclusion
When you’re working with an experienced team responsible for making your website stand out, you can ensure you have strong foothold in the digital market. Not only will they focus on all the necessary elements of a responsive website design, but they’ll also reduce the chances of a basic error occurring.
