Is Your Website Responsive?

What is a responsive website?

Responsive Web Design (RWD) is an approach to website design aimed at allowing desktop web pages to view in response to the size of the device (smartphone or tablet) one is viewing with.

A website using a responsive design makes use of flexible layouts, flexible images, and cascading style sheet media queries. The goal of responsive design is to build web pages that detect the visitor’s screen size and orientation and change the layout accordingly.

How does a responsive website work?

To see a responsive website in action, view this article on a desktop or laptop browser and manually minimize the width of the browser to make it thinner. You should see the layout adjust itself to fit the new width of the browser. You will see a change in the web page menu, pictures, and content. This will let you know if a website is responsive or not. Try this test on another website or on your own website. If the page does not adjust to fit the smaller/thinner browser width and you have to scroll to view the full page, that means the website design is not responsive.

You can also use the website Am I Responsive to check website responsiveness. Enter your URL in the input field and click Go. This will render your site on multiple devices to check the responsiveness.

Why should you want a responsive website?

1. Mobile usage has exploded.

Mobile internet usage surpasses desktop usage. For the first time in history, in 2016 more users acc) than they did from desktops or notebooks. According to data released by StatCounter, 51.3% of all web visits in October 2016 came from mobile devices compared to 48.7% of visits from traditional computing platforms.

2023 Update: The percentage of global web traffic on mobile phones has surged over the past decade. As of November 2022, 60.28 percent of all web traffic came through mobile phones. Consistently hovering around the 50 percent mark since the beginning of 2017.

2. Positive user experience is a must.

If a user lands on your mobile website and doesn’t see what they are looking for, there’s a 61% chance they will leave and go to another website, most likely a competitor. Conversely, if they have a positive experience with your mobile responsive website, a user is 67% more likely to buy a product or use a service.

3. Social media activities bring mobile visitors.

If you use social media for your business, you’re probably seeing an increase in mobile traffic. A recent study by ComScore cites that 55% of social media consumption happens on a mobile device. Therefore, it is a good business practice to ensure your website is mobile-responsive and user-friendly.

4. 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. It also 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.

5. A speedy responsive website is key.

A responsive website will not slow down when loading a desktop website on a mobile device. When a user has to wait too long for a page to load, there’s a high chance they will leave your site and not return.

6. Responsive adapts to future devices.

The benefit of using a responsive design is the size of the template is based on screen size, not the device. That means no matter what size screen someone is viewing your website, it will display properly for that screen size.

Do you need a responsive website design?

If so, get in touch, and let me help you to transition from an unresponsive website to a new responsive website that will add value to your business and marketing efforts.

Source: ami.responsivedesign.is