What are responsive websites and why are they so important?
Did you know apparently 1 in 5 men read their iPad on the loo! So make sure your website is responsive to help them out.... Responsive websites adjust to the device your customers use to view your business online. You can reach a higher audience especially those who use mobiles and tablets for their online activity. Therefore offering visitors to your website a good experience on the device of their choice will help retain them and convert them to customers.
Benefits of a responsive website
Responsive websites adjust to the device your customers use to view your business online. You can reach a higher audience especially those who use mobiles and tablets for their online activity. Therefore offering visitors to your website a good experience on the device of their choice will help retain them and convert them to customers.
What are 'responsive websites'?
Responsive websites is 'responsive web design' or RWD and is aimed at creating sites to provide an optimal viewing experience for the user. Thus allowing the user to easily read the contents and navigate around the site with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling across a wide range of devices (from mobile phones and tablets to desktop computer monitors).
Websites designed with RWD respond and therefore adapt the layout to the viewing environment by using fluid, proportion-based grids, flexible images, and CSS3 media queries.
Why are responsive websites important?
Smartphones and tablets have changed the approach toward website design and user experiences. Responsive websites offers the way forward. Mobile internet usage continues to rise so it makes sense to invest in a responsive website so there is no loss in business opportunity.
Responsive Website or Mobile website?
Responsive websites require that you only have one website that is coded to adapt to different screen sizes, no matter what device your website is displayed on. Therefore there are many more benefits to having a responsive website than a mobile website with a desktop website.
Mobile websites from aprompt are still one website - with one admin area. You don't therefore have to have 2 separate websites - one desktop and one mobile site. However there are developers (not us we hasten to add) who insist you would need a completely separate entity requiring you to have a second, mobile-only website or subdomain with 2 admin areas, which is a waste of your time and money so be aware of this. The benefit of having a mobile website over a responsive website is that users can opt to 'return to desktop site' if they wish. With aprompt mobile websites any content you update will update both versions, so you only need one admin area. Cost effective and time efficient.
Reasons why your website now needs to be responsive
- Increased usage of Smartphones and Tablets
- Google algorithm change on 21st April 2015
- Positive user experience is a must - you want to make it easy for users to browse your website
- Blogging and social activities bring mobile visitors - most users read Blogs on mobile devices
- Responsive design is preferred for SEO
Google prefers responsive web design over mobile templates. Having one single URL makes it easier for Google bots to crawl your site as well as reduces the chance of on-page SEO errors. For these reasons, responsive sites typically perform better and are easier to maintain than a separate, mobile-template site. - Google mobile search results favour mobile friendly websites
- A speedy responsive website is important
- Quicker loading for responsive sites on roaming mobile devices, i.e. non Wifi
- Responsive websites adapt to future devices
One of the big benefits of responsive design is that the size of the site is designed based on screen size, not device. This means that no matter what size screen a user is viewing your website on, it will display properly for that screen size.
So, in the future, as new devices are being used for web browsing, your responsive site will still look stunning.
Should I get a responsive website?
Yes, more and more evidence shows that it is critical your website provides mobile users an easy-to-use experience – using responsive website design. Having a mobile-friendly website is now a necessity and can impact the growth of your business.
Want to change your website to be responsive?
If you have an old website that you’d like to change to a responsive site or if you'd like your old website to have an additional mobile site please get in touch by calling 0845 224 5806 and ask for Kirsty Paget.
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Written by Kirsty Paget
