Responsive or fluid design refers to having one website that works on all devices. No mobile site! A correctly executed responsive design will ‘respond’ to a users viewport no matter what device they are using.
Have you ever run across a website on your smart phone where you have to pinch and zoom to find the navigation or even read any of the content? This is what we refer to as a terrible user experience.
There are several reasons why everyone serious about having a successful web presence should have a responsive website, but we are only going to cover a few.
1. Google Says So!
First and foremost, the number one reason is Google strongly recommends the use of responsive website design and deems it to be the best practice. Responsive websites have one URL and the same HTML. How many times have you been searching for something and the dreaded mobile site will pop up with a link to view the ‘full website’. These sites are usually very similar to your domain name with the instance of the “m” at the beginning of the URL. For example, Best Buy is http://bestbuy.com. Their mobile site is http://m.bestbuy.com which is their mobile version. Google prefers to see one site, not two. This allows them to easily crawl and index your website content with better results.
2. Say Goodbye To The High Bounce Rate
If a user reaches your website but immediately returns to the SERP (search engine results page), Google will not consider it to be the best match for the user. At the present time over 60% of online searches are conducted on a mobile device and this continues to grow surpassing the desktop computer search. Responsive design will cut the dreaded ‘Bounce Rate’.
3. One Website = One SEO Campaign
Technology is about making life more convenient. SEO (search engine optimization) is the campaign used to increase your website statistics. With a responsive website design, all efforts can be pointed to only one site (one domain). This will definitely give you an edge over the non-responsive competitors.
4. Long Term Maintenance
Many businesses are still not set up for responsive design or others are still using the dated mobile site. Mobile web design has several maintenance issues attached to it. As technology is drastically changing, a mobile site will need to be updated and maintained more frequently that a responsive website which is low maintenance. A user may keep updating their device from time to time but your website will rarely need any frequent updates to keep up with the changing devices of your users.
5. ROI (return on investment)
All the factors we have described have one thing in common. To yield maximum ‘Return On Investment’ A non-responsive web design is likely to put your business down as it will not be able to compete with your rival websites that are responsive. To expand your business, it is necessary to reach more people than your competition and going responsive will guarantee you a larger audience increasing your chance of conversions.
