A responsive website is a website that adapts to the screen of any mobile device that it’s viewed on and looks just as appealing, and is as easy to navigate as on larger screens. Last year, over 60% of internet users accessed the web from mobile devices like tablets and smartphones than they did from bigger screens like notebooks or desktops. This statistic alone should be enough to convince anyone of the importance of responsive web design, but if you still need to be persuaded, we’ve listed some other added advantages below;
1. Smooth user experience: Number one is user experience. A smooth user experience will keep your users happy and always coming back to your website. But if your website isn’t responsive, visitors will find scrolling difficult –and they will leave immediately. A responsive website design will ensure that a website looks as good on mobile and that the features available to desktop users are also available to mobile users. If your web design is not responsive, text will be improperly aligned, images will look like lower quality versions of themselves and scrolling through your website will be a hardship for users. Particularly, with a non-responsive website they have to scroll to sides (left and right) in order to see the whole website. In some cases, all of the website shows but the text is so small and unreadable that it will pretty much convince the user to leave the website. The layout of your website must not be distorted on mobile, and the images must be viewable without zooming and pinching. Bad user experience kicks users away –fast. And they will never return.
2. More mobile traffic: As stated earlier, statistics show that over 60% of people surf the web via their mobile devices. When your website is not responsive, you stand the risk of losing website views from a lot of people. In most cases, a business would like to convert visitors to potential callers or lead them to fill in the contact form. On responsive websites with a click on the number visitors can call you or fill in the contact form. This is certainly not the case on non-responsive websites.
3. Better page ranking with Search Engines: Google is the leading search engine provider in the world and whenever Google returns search results to a user, the pages at the top are the ones that are often viewed the most. Google takes responsiveness into consideration when ranking websites. So, if your website is responsive, it will rank higher on search engines. In 2015, Google announced Mobilegeddon which is a change to Google’s algorithm that will prioritize responsive websites over the rest.
4. Effective site management: A responsive website will take less time to manage, and it will cost much less to manage than having two separate websites, that is one for mobile and one for desktop. To manage two different websites, you need to ensure that the content on the two different sites are synchronized. A single responsive website will give you less content and SEO to manage. Most website owners know by experience that being able to access the backend of the website to make instant changes using a mobile device is very important for their business. Responsive design provides that feature.
5. Fast loading webpages: If your website takes too long to load, people will leave it for another website. A lot of people get pissed off by long loading times and if your website isn’t responsive, it will take longer to load on mobile devices. A responsive website has a faster loading speed. And again, Google and other search engine have incorporated a loading speed score into their ranking algorithm.
Any business serious about making a mark online must have a responsive website. Yes, there are other alternatives, but they aren’t a choice anymore – a responsive website is the only way to go. You need to hop on the train or you will be left at a deserted station in Neverland.