A responsive website is as simple as this: the website gracefully adjusts to fit any screen. That means your website will be easy to navigate, and fully functional, on every device from a smartphone to a laptop. Remember when you had to move your browser page to the left or right and adjust it to fit your screen so that you could read a really long sentence? Ever tried to access a website on your phone and it was just a super tiny version of the website you accessed on your desktop and you had to zoom in and out and move the page all around to read and click? Well, those websites were not responsive. A responsive website is designed to look good – and function well – on screens inches wide to feet across.
Let’s break it down; here are our top 7 reasons why you need a responsive website:
1. Mobile/tablet usage will continue to rise:
Take a step outside; can you see somebody using a mobile phone? The chances are you can and whether you like it or not this tendency for people to be joined at the hip with their mobile device is here to stay.
In spite of this, there are still many businesses that have not yet picked up on this trend of ever increasing percentages of mobile and tablet Internet users.
Increasing use of the Internet and proliferation of web applications on tablet and mobile devices has been the driving force behind the development of responsive websites. Previous to this, users would either have to browse the standard desktop site or be re-directed to a device specific site (e.g. mobile), having a responsive design means one site can be implemented across multiple devices.
2. Recommended by Google:
Not so long ago Google announced that having a responsive web design can help improve the SEO of your site. Why does Google favour responsive design? The main reason it that they use a single URL, making it much easier for them to crawl and index the content within your domain.
They also offer a better user experience and as you should know by now, user experience is high on Google’s list of SEO criteria. If the biggest search engine in the world says responsive web design is important, who are we to argue?
Google understand that unhappy visitors will go elsewhere; meaning that bounce rates increase and the site will not rank well within mobile searches.
3. One website, One URL:
One of the most appealing aspects of responsive web design is that a responsive website can provide a great user-experience across many devices and screen sizes. This is an important characteristic, since it is impossible to anticipate all the devices and screen sizes searchers will use to access your site.
Let’s take the following scenario as an example. A user searches for a product on his or her mobile phone during a break at work. They find a site that has the product they’re looking for; they then decide to continue researching this product on the same site when they get home later that evening. Unfortunately, when they get home, they will use their desktop instead of their smartphone.
If the site in this example is responsive, this person will have a positive user-experience when transitioning from mobile to desktop because they will view the same site on their desktop as they did on their smartphone. On the other hand, if the site is a dedicated mobile site, this user will become annoyed and frustrated with the fact that they have to locate the desktop version of the site and search for the product again.
4. Lower Bounce Rate:
Even if a website is sitting pretty in search results, if it doesn’t work effectively for mobile and tablet users, bounce rate will be a considerable problem. Mobile versions of websites can suffer from a high bounce rate if the content they provide is too stripped down, or too different from the content offered on the desktop version. Google may then interpret this high bounce rate as a sign that a website isn’t offering relevant content to users, this is then likely to lead to a drop in rankings.
A responsively designed site combats this problem by presenting all of the same content found on the desktop site (but in a much more functional way). Responsive web design means that there is no needs to negotiate on the content you choose to show; this then helps to ensure that visitors always receive the information they are looking for (keeping them on page and lowering bounce rate)!
5. Increase Conversion Rates (and sales):
Besides all of the search benefits of having a responsive website, it also has the ability to increase those sought-after conversion rates from all of the mobile users in the world. Why? Well, if a website does not work effectively on mobile or tablet device, users will not be able to convert.
When a user has to do more work than needed to complete a conversion, do you think that they will still convert? Possibly but it is certainly less likely.
If a user visits your website and encounters a problem on their preferred device, you are likely to lose that potential business. However, if the potential customer can access your website with ease from any device, they are unlikely to switch to a competitor. Enhancing a user’s journey and experience will increase conversion rates and ultimately improve sales.
6. Future proof your website:
Technology is constantly changing and progressing; this makes it difficult to predict what will be the next development. One of the many positive things about responsive website design is that they adapt to different screen sizes. This means that even if your website is being viewed from smart glasses and watches in the future, it will still be optimised and compatible! If you are looking for a way to future proof your website and potentially save money in the long run, a responsive website design is a worthwhile investment.
7. Improved Local Search Rankings:
Google suggest that mobile optimised, responsive sites are featuring prominently in localised search results. This is obviously of huge significance to high street retailers and local businesses.