Why Responsive Design?
Your customers and potential clients are searching for products and services on their smart phones.
Over the past decade, the internet has become the number one go-to source of information for consumers. Nowadays, a company without a website is like a singer without a microphone: irrelevant. You may have the best product in the world, but without an effective way to relay that to consumers, you’re going to have a tough time selling it.
That being said, just having a website won’t get you where you want to be anymore. Internet content and the way we choose to consume it is constantly changing, as are the expectations for your website by the user. With the age of mobile devices upon us, the internet is now available through a plethora of different mediums and mobile usage is skyrocketing like never before.
Let’s look at the facts:
- In today’s world, over 1.2 billion people access the web from their mobile devices, nearly half of them saying they use mobile as either their primary or exclusive method for online browsing
- Nearly 40% of all emails are opened on mobile phones and tablets
- 1 in 4 internet searches are conducted from a mobile device
- Mobile internet users now account for 15% of all internet traffic
- 78% of Facebook users and 60% of Twitter users are mobile. Data also indicates that mobile users share more content compared to their desktop counterparts. Pinterest users share three times more content on mobile
These staggering numbers and statistics tell us one thing for sure: with this many people browsing the mobile web as often as they are, the chances are pretty high that your website is being viewed by someone on a smart phone or tablet. Today’s users have grown accustomed to a certain standard of mobile browsing, and expectations are high for the usability of mobile sites.
The question is, is your site ready for them?
Responsive web design allows your website to be perpetually accessible for your users through any medium, be it on a smart phone, tablet or desktop. The layout of your responsive website will adjust itself to fit the screen of any device, as well as customize the functionality of the site depending on the device it’s being viewed on. This allows your users to have the same experience and absorb content seamlessly across all devices, leaving a lasting positive impression on them and further solidifying your company’s identity and web presence.
Now that you know what responsive design does for you users, let’s get into what it does for you:
Along with simplifying and enhancing the user experience, responsive design will simplify virtually every aspect of your website from your end as well. Sharing site content becomes substantially more effective when your site is responsive, as the link URL is the same across all devices (in contrast with mobile sites, which redirect the user and sometimes don’t work at all). Having a single URL also helps Google track your traffic, as well as saves resources for both you and Google’s crawlers, as they only need to crawl your page once. Utilizing a responsive design will drastically increase your conversion rates simply by being mobile friendly, and all your SEO efforts will be narrowed down to one page, optimizing results.
We discussed earlier that the internet is constantly evolving, along with how we choose to access it. Because of this, companies often find themselves trying to play catch up with the rapid change of the industry. The beautiful thing about responsive web design is in the name: responsive. Why try to keep up with the various technological changes that will occur in the coming months and years? Develop your website to be ahead of the curve, ready to respond to whatever technology users can throw at it.
So go Responsive. It’s good for your business. It’s good for your users. It’s good for everyone.
Make the switch and see the results unfold before your eyes. Shoot us an email with any questions about responsive web design. We can help you update and improve your company’s web presence.