In May 2015, Google announced that the volume of search requests from mobile devices overtook the number from traditional computers in 10 countries, including the United States. The growing popularity of mobile platforms poses challenges to content managers, but using responsive design within your website may allow you to capitalize on this trend.
Responsive Web Design Overview
The responsive philosophy of website creation posits that webpages should appear attractive on a wide variety of hardware. To deliver content that’s well suited for viewing on PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets, properly designed sites employ techniques that include:
- Conserving bandwidth by sending smaller images to tiny screens
- Variable font sizes to improve readability
- Proportional scaling of page elements
- Adjustments to layout based on screen resolution
- Lazy Loading to reduce initial loading times
While there are a number of strategies for catering to your mobile audience, the use of responsive design offers several distinct advantages over most of them.
1. Managing a Responsive Site Is Easier Than Alternatives
Producing in-house mobile apps is one popular course of action, but this requires considerable development resources, and apps need to be updated somewhat frequently to avoid obsolescence. Another approach is to create different versions of each page for multiple devices. This involves a lot of duplication of effort and increases your file storage requirements. You may have to play catch-up as new models come on the market with display characteristics that you had not anticipated.
Avoid having to hire app programmers or engage in arduous beta testing by instead making your website responsive. You won’t have to try to guess what specific products your audience is equipped with because your new pages will look great on all of them.
2. Responsive Websites Provide UX Benefits
Mobile-unfriendly sites can be frustrating for users: Hard-to-read text, cropped or unappealing graphics, and the need to zoom in or out can really turn visitors off your brand. Salesforce Marketing Cloud found that 27 percent of users will leave a site if it delivers a poor mobile experience.
Although dedicated apps address some of these concerns, they’ll appeal mostly to only your hardcore fans. Sites that incorporate responsive features, on the other hand, make it convenient for casual viewers as well as long-time customers to access content from mobile browsers.
3. Boost Your Search Rankings With a Mobile-Friendly Site
As SearchEngineLand.com explains, Google now incorporates mobile-friendliness into its search algorithms. This means that redesigning your site to be responsive could allow you to score well in search results and displace sites that don’t adopt these methods.
It might seem that responsive design is a no-brainer, but a study from Pure Oxygen Labs in 2015 found that only 20 percent of the leading online retail sites used responsive designs. There’s therefore an opportunity for you to get a leg up on your competitors by incorporating responsive web design into your online undertakings.
