The next step to having a successful small business is having a mobile-friendly website. Otherwise, you will be left behind as technology continues to advance. And your competitors are glad to pick up where you leave off.
Today we have to take a different approach as it relates to designing a website for all users, both desktop and mobile.
Prior to so many mobile devices becoming available with their advanced capabilities to browse the web, designers were only faced with one main challenge, and that was to deal with maintaining one design for all web pages.
You have to take several things into consideration such as:
- Size of screen
- Screen resolution
- Touch screen capabilities
- Optimized markup
Most probably if you check your analytics, you will find out that already 10% – 30% of your visitors are coming from mobile/tablets and if you are not offering them a user friendly version you are losing customers.
Responsive Website Design
So, what is responsive website design? It has to do with designing and coding your website so that it offers the finest experience to all users, regardless of the device they are using to view your site.
This means it will be easier to read and easier to navigate because visitors can easily read the text and view the images on your site without having to pinch and scroll back and forth.
A web designer will create a Responsive Website Design to make sure that navigation elements are in place as well as screen layouts, images, videos and audio.
Advantages
- With Responsive Website Design, your website is more fluid, which means that the content and images respond to the size of the screen on all devices. Appearing on smartphones is critical for local businesses. 94% of smartphone users look for local information on their phone and 84% take action as a result, such as making a purchase or contacting the business.
- This allows users to have a better online experience, being able to access content on any website and through any device.
- Instead of having one website specifically for desktop computer users and one for mobile device users, you have one website conducive to both audiences.
- Google also recommends that website owners change to mobile friendly websites since their algorithms have changed to accommodate this new technology. Having a responsive website can definitely lead to better search engine ranking.
- It is much easier to manage one website than two. And this is definitely more cost effective.