Many people tend to confuse a mobile friendly website with a responsive website but that’s not exactly the same. A mobile friendly website looks good on mobile devices but may not look so good on devices with bigger resolutions.
In the majority of the cases, there is the desktop version of a website and then there are dedicated pages (usually on an m.subdomain) optimized for mobile which are different from those shown on the desktop.
While these websites look good on the desktop and mobile, if you view them on other resolutions the user experience is not so good.
With responsive websites there is only one set of pages (and one set of code) for a website and what is changing is the way those pages adapt in the different devices.
What is responsive design?
For those that are not familiar with the term ‘responsive web design’, the simplest definition I can give is that a responsive web site is optimized for viewing (i.e. looks good) on different types of devices, screens and resolutions. In other words the design adapts to the available viewing space offering the user with a nice experience without having to move left and right with a scroll bar or zoom-in, zoom out in order to read the text or view an image.
To give you a real example, try to view the article you are reading now on a desktop or laptop, android tablet, ipad or smartphone. Try to turn the devices to landscape/portrait mode and observe how the design adapts to the screen size and resolution.
What is not a responsive design? A website that looks exactly the same on mobile as it looks on the desktop (but in smaller size) is not a responsive design. With a responsive design you can read, navigate and interact with a website on the device of your choice without having to zoom in or out.
How can you make a website responsive?
It is not the purpose of this article to go into the technical details on how to make a responsive website but I can give you some guidelines and examples on what we have done for other clients.
Websites can be designed responsive from the beginning or can be converted into responsive later.
There are 2 ways to make a responsive website:
1) Use a responsive theme – if you are using wordpress there are a number of ready-made themes that are also responsive so you can buy one out of the shelf and use it.
2) Transform your existing website and theme into responsive design.
3) Create a custom design from scratch that it’s also responsive.
For more details on our products and services, please feel free to visit us at: Social Media Marketing, Internet Marketing, Search engine marketing, Internet Marketing Company, Best Online Marketing Company India.