Why Responsive Web Design is an Asset for Your Online Business

The number of people using mobile phones is on the rise. They want all the information to be available to them on their mobile phones. Apart from this, a large number of people also use tablets and laptops.

With such a huge number of people using different devices to access the internet, it becomes all the more important that your website displays well on whichever device the user is using. Responsive web design is the technology behind this need.

A responsive web design (RWD) makes your website display perfectly on all devices. A saying that describes RWD accurately is, ‘Content is like water. You put the water in any container it takes the shape of the container. So is the case with web content. It should display well on whichever device it is viewed. And, RWD makes this possible.

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How is responsive web design implemented?

RWD is implemented by using HTML and CSS to resize the content based on the device on which it is displaying. A website can be made responsive by implementing the following:

Fluid Grids – Fluid grid lets you design elements in which sizing is done as a percentage instead of absolute units like pixels or points. This helps the elements to compress when the screen is small and expand when the screen is large.
Flexible Images – Images are also set using relative units so that they do not display outside their container.
Media Queries – They help in using different CSS styles depending on the device used. Media queries are useful when the screen width drops below a value that cannot be managed using fluid grids.
Viewport value – You can set the meta tag to value “viewport”. This adds the viewport to your page and instructs the browser on managing the page’s dimensions and scaling.

Benefits of responsive web design

Tremendous user experience

The visitors using your website are satisfied as they have a great experience visiting your site. They do not need to resize the content to make it readable. The website layout is well adjusted to whichever devices it is being viewed. This decreases the bounce rate and users stay on your site for a longer period.

Easy maintainability

If RWD is not used, there will be a separate site for mobile and another one for desktop. It is difficult to manage and update these websites. Using RWD, you can have just one website for all the devices. This makes it easy to manage. Also, the users may be confused with multiple addresses for a single business.

Cost and time saving

There is no requirement of having separate websites for mobile and desktop. It saves both time and money. Also, the maintenance is easier and less costly.

Boosts sales and conversions

Having a responsive website results in only a single website that can be used across the devices. So, on whichever device the user accesses the website he encounters a consistent appearance to which he can relate and also begins to identify your website. This develops trust and finally results in more sales and conversions.

Positive effect on SEO

Google prefers RWD to multiple websites and considers Responsive Web Design as an industry best practice. It is easier for Google to crawl a single site than having multiple site versions of the same organization. This makes sites implementing RWD rank higher than those that do not.

Google may also penalize sites for content duplications if multiple sites of an organization have similar content.

It is tedious to perform SEO for multiple sites as compared to a single site. It is less time-consuming and cost-effective. Also, the complete focus is on a single site so SEO can be performed in a better manner as you can focus on content, keywords, optimizing the URL, building links, and other aspects important for SEO.

Easier to apply Analytics

If there are separate sites for mobile and desktop, both will have separate analytics data which will have to be clubbed in order to analyze. But if there is a single site this task is much easier.

The Analytics tool provides great insights which can play an important role in formulating further strategies. Some of the insights that the Analytics tool provides are devices or browsers used by visitors, the time they spend on the site, and more.

Quicker loading pages

Websites that are responsive load faster especially on smartphones and tablets as compared to a site that does not implement RWD. It has been found that users are generally driven away if the site takes more than three seconds to load.

Faster sites attract more traffic. Almost 52% of searches in the last quarter of 2017 were done from mobile devices. This clearly shows how important RWD is. Users spend more time on faster sites leading to more conversions.

The rank above your competitors

If your competitors have still not implemented RWD, your site will be able to rank higher in the search results. This gives your business the much wanted competitive edge. You can gain more business as a result of greater traffic on your website.

Increased social sharing

If you have an RWD, your site will be able to attract quality traffic. Many of the visitors may share your content with their friends. So, it is important for your website to have social sharing buttons.

Social sharing exposes your website to more people and this may result in increasing your customer base. Social sharing also helps you in achieving better search engine rankings.

Buy on the go

In these days of online commerce, people are used to buying as they are on the go mostly from their smartphones. If your site is not responsive and does not display well on mobile devices you may lose a lot of sales that are done on the go.

Winding Up

Today as the world is moving towards mobile phones and tablets, it is but obvious that businesses want to be accessible on mobile devices as well. The users must be able to view your content and make a purchase. This makes responsive web design a must has in all websites.

Author Bio:

Ashley Marsh is a Senior- Content Writer at Maan Softwares Inc. She has been with this company for the past four years. She is specialized in the technical writing genre especially in mobile development, web design, and, latest technologies.