What is responsive web design?

We live in a mobile era where more than 2 billion people access the internet with their smartphones only. As so many people choose to browse the web with their devices, it’s essential that their experience while interacting with your product stays consistent no matter when and by what means they visit your website.

Such increasing popularity of smartphones has made the need for high-quality responsive web design services more relevant than ever. And it’s not only because of statistics. Today, responsive design is more than a trend, it is a universal tool for increasing the economic efficiency of any website.

Below in this blog post, we will discuss how your business can benefit from having a responsive website. But first of all, let’s clarify if we mean one thing when we use the word “responsive design”.

Short explanation

Responsive web design is a practice in design that uses fluid grids, flexible images, and media queries to make the website look and feel the same no matter what screen size, platform, or orientation you have. The goal of a such design is to ensure that the site remains user-friendly and converting when you open it on different devices.

Responsive design allows you not to typeset site page options for different parameters of devices people may use, but to adjust the same site for them, keeping its main code and key elements. This has a positive effect on many aspects of your business.

Reasons to choose responsive design

Among the business advantages of a responsive website, we can figure out the following:

It saves your budget

Building and maintaining a separate mobile app takes time and money. Moreover, in case you create one version for smartphone users and one for those who prefer desktops, you will have to put more affords (and money) to attract the audience and conduct SEO optimization for both of them.

Responsive design means that you create only one site that is suitable for all devices. This way you reduce the cost of development and site support. Providing your customers with a consistent experience across different devices increases user loyalty and saves your budget.

It makes the website more usable

Modern businesses compete with each other to attract and convert a bigger audience to their websites. At the same time, users don’t just pay attention to how convenient the site is, they tend to demand an easy and pleasant experience of interaction with your product. The simpler and more comfortable the site is, the larger the audience it attracts.

After all, will you stay on the page when only a part of it is displayed on the screen and some design elements overlap each other? Such things distract users, and sometimes do not allow them to perceive information in the proper way. People will probably leave such a website after several seconds.

Non-responsive sites are poorly adapted to be displayed on mobile devices. You have to use horizontal scrolling to view the full page and the text is often unreadable. In contrast, a responsive design makes it easy for a visitor to take any conversion action anytime and anywhere.

Better search engine rankings

Google puts websites with a responsive design higher on the list than those without for people who search for something with their smartphones. That is, when browsing the internet with their mobile, users will see sites adapted to their devices first. This way by making a site that supports both smartphones and desktops, you can leave your competitors behind.

The higher a website is in the search bar; the more people will visit it. As a result, you receive more customers and more revenue.

Higher conversion

According to  Practical Ecommerce, cross-device support, higher rankings, and a consistent user experience results in higher conversions as customers can better interact with your website from their favorite devices.

Additional traffic, fast page load, the correct placing of the call-to-action buttons leads to the fact that the user finds what they were looking for quickly and easily. According to research conducted by Google, the conversion of responsive sites is 15% higher than those without a mobile version.

Users want to quickly find information, make an order, and easily read features of your service. Make the experience of using the site for your customers intuitive. The easier it is for a user to figure out which button to click to achieve a certain result, the more likely they are to make the purchase.

Higher retention rate

A website with a responsive design considers the way visitors perceive information from small screens. It helps the visitor to go through bottlenecks and make a purchase decision.

Responsive sites have a lower bounce rate, that is, a lower amount of people who left the web resource without viewing a single page. You can check the bounce rate for mobile users in Google Analytics in the “Audience” report.

Mobile users are impatient. They don’t have time to deal with navigation, read the fine print. Correct display of all site elements will keep visitors. They will not close the page immediately after the opening, they will read more content, and are more likely to return to you again.

Analytics integration capability

According to Practical Ecommerce, the fact that responsive design allows you to use one website to serve all devices leads to the ability to create a single analytical report – for all devices at once, which will lead to better site management and better measurement of the results of multi-channel campaigns. It also allows you to set up a set of performance indicators and track them across all platforms at once.

To sum up

Let’s sum up the final result on the advantages of responsive design.

Using a responsive layout saves time, money, and labor costs for creating a modern website that will be equally easy to navigate for both desktop and mobile users. You get a true cross-platform for your project, coupled with growing conversions for the products or services you sell.

Finally, making the website look and work properly on different devices is a must in today’s world. And the business is either taking care of their smartphone users or missing out on customers.

If you still hesitate if to invest in responsive design, go to Google Analytics and check a metric report on how many visitors come to your site from mobile devices. If it shows 20% or more, you should take care of all those users and make your website responsive.