Smartphones have greatly impacted our lives. As much as changing our lifestyles, smartphones have forever changed the way we do business. In fact, smartphones are powerful enough to run an entire business. With so many features packed into this one condensed device that easily fits into your pocket, you are surely losing out on major opportunities if your brand’s website is not designed to adjust to mobile and other devices.

The number of smartphone users in the world is projected to reach 2.7 billion by 2019. And in order to reach this vast audience, your website needs to follow a responsive design.

In this blog, we’ve listed the various reasons affirming why responsive design is more of a necessary innovation than a striking feature. We’ll also guide you on the design aspects of a responsive website design.

But first, let’s understand what a Responsive Web Design is?

Responsive web design is a technical approach to web development in which the website is designed such that it adapts to different screen resolutions and appears optimally in a range of devices.

Such a design allows the user to easily zoom, pan and scroll when browsing the site from different devices such as a desktop monitor, tablet, or mobile device. Responsive Design makes web pages clearly visible and easy-to-navigate.

Reading this definition might have you wonder what the difference between a mobile-friendly website and a responsive website is.

Well, to begin with, a mobile-friendly site is designed to work the exact same way across devices. Its content is static and the design offers consistent website experience across all devices. On the other hand, a responsive website responds to the needs of the device and changes accordingly. It has dynamic content that responds to the device it is being viewed on, giving a rather customized mobile experience.

Now that you’re clear on the basics, let’s take a look at why you should be investing in Responsive Web Design –

More Traffic from Smartphone Users

There was a time when businesses built two versions of their website -one for desktops and the other for mobile phones. There are many who still follow the same practice. But having two different versions of one website is not only time consuming but a high maintenance practice too. Due to their portability and ease of use, smartphones are instinctively used by the audience today to access different websites. This has led to an ever-increasing viewership from mobile users who take note of whether the website is mobile ready or not.

Huge mobile traffic is reason enough for businesses to focus on making their website responsive for mobile devices users.

Easy Maintenance and Lower Cost

Using a responsive web design for your website does not require intense efforts in maintaining and managing. All the more it offers you a lower maintenance cost as compared to running two versions of one website. Rather than creating and maintaining different versions of the same website, it is definitely easier to maintain a responsive web design both in terms of effort and cost. Though relatively expensive in the beginning, the reduced cost of maintaining different versions results in offering a bigger benefit in the long run.

Responsive sites are not only easy to set up but easy to maintain as well which makes them a viable investment option for businesses.

Seamless User Experience

Mobile users today demand a seamless mobile experience. What an unresponsive website usually does is distort the way your website appears on devices like tablets and mobile. The website content is all jumbled up, images are smaller, and navigating through the website becomes a challenge. By having a responsive web design, businesses can improve their users’ experience on mobile devices. Your mobile audience can enjoy a rather manageable and attractive version of the website on their mobile devices.

Seamless user experience is undoubtedly one of the biggest benefits of having a responsive website.

Better SEO Gains

Responsive design is Google’s recommended design pattern. Google identifies ‘time on page’ as a major indicator of a site’s value for any given query and prefers websites with quicker page loading times. Responsive web design makes the website much easier for visitors to read and navigate thereby increasing the site’s readability and eventually, the time spent on it. Also, mobile responsive websites ordinarily load faster than non-responsive sites. This ensures that your content is displayed in a clean and crisp manner and your website is rewarded by Google with better search engine rankings.

Mobile responsive design is definitely the pathway to reap the potential SEO rewards.

To see how well your website currently fairs you can take Google’s mobile responsive test and see precisely what Google’s search algorithm is looking for.

Here are some tips for designing a responsive website –

Google’s preference is clear — responsive design is what it favors. So, if you’re planning on building a new website or giving a facelift to your existing site, here are a few tips you should follow –

Create Wireframe

Planning a layout before delving into the design part will help you create the exact look and feel that you want. In fact, most designers begin by building a wireframe before moving onto the coding part. Create several responsive prototypes and test them to make sure that the end design is responsive.

Optimize Images

Images enhance the visual appeal of your website. Hence, it’s important for your images to be optimized for the web. Save images in the suitable format — photographic or scenic images as JPG and icons and logos as PNG formats while making sure that the images are optimized for various mobile breakpoints.

Optimize Typography

Your text should be as legible on a small screen as it is on a desktop. Use start fonts and avoid or script fonts for body copy or in your menu items because they’re hard to read. Adjust the size of headings and body copy and also keep the line height of your text wide enough to give sufficient breathing room. Make sure that your text does not appear crammed up.

Ensure Easy Navigation

Your website should be easy to navigate through. The desktop version of your website will definitely have visible links to all the important pages. In the mobile versions, however, a better approach is to leave the most important menu items visible while using the hamburger menu for the rest of the links.

Make Buttons Easy-to-click

Screen real-estate for mobile phones is so precious that you might make the mistake of keeping your buttons and other call-to-actions so small that it becomes difficult for the user to click them. Pay extra attention to the size of the buttons. Make them easily recognizable by using color variations and shapes. You may also use padding on your button to increase the clickable area.

Conclusion

As stated above, responsive design is no more a striking feature that will make your website stand out. It has become more of a necessary innovation that you need to adopt right away. Your website needs to look equally good and work well on a desktop, a tablet, as well as a smartphone’s browser. And a responsive web design can help you achieve this.

Remember, investing in responsive web design will help you in the following ways –

• Increase reach to consumers on all devices
• Offer a consistent user experience which increases retention
• Cut downtime and cost of site maintenance
• Boost SEO gains and aid marketing online

Responsive web design is mobile-friendly and is strongly recommended by Google. The end result of having a responsive website is more traffic, better lead generation, added conversions, and increased sales — the big reasons your business should be investing in responsive web design, today!

When did you last use your smartphone? A few seconds ago? A few minutes ago? We’re sure some of you are even reading this blog on your smart devices. That’s how frequently we use our phones nowadays..