With iPhones, Tablets, and Android phones becoming one of the most common mediums for users to browse websites online, it is high time that website owners realize the significance of designing responsive websites. Though the first website of this genre was created some time back in 1996 when the Nokia 9000 web-friendly communicator was launched, the concept is yet to carve a place for itself among the web based businesses. 2012 saw the topic being avidly discussed. So what is the big hype that surrounds responsive web design? Let’s delve into the specifics.
Responsive website design (RWD) is a user-friendly design that enables your site to resize or adapt itself dynamically on whatever device it is viewed on, irrespective of the screen size. In other words, you can view your site perfectly well without any distortion in both small mobile screens and big desktop screens alike. The panning and scrolling is diminished greatly with this technique. It is as if the website behaves as a fluid, getting adjusted to the size of the container in which it is held – hence a more appropriate name for this – Fluid Design. This design boosts user experience, improves conversion rates, and brings better exposure for your site.
Many people would wonder why go for a responsive design, when we could develop mobile apps as well which would be native apps and which would best fit the screen sizes anyway. However, to get a mobile app developed for a business is not just expensive but also time consuming. A responsive website on the other hand makes use of existing resources at your disposal, repurposes your website layout thereby enhancing accessibility on mobile devices. Your mobile-enabled website would then respond optimally to any medium it is viewed on. For instance, a site can have three columns and a single sidebar when viewed from a desktop, whereas it can show much lesser columns and critical information only when viewed from a mobile or tablet. And all this at a fraction of the cost of developing mobile apps.
Preliminary secondary research on statistics shows that in 2013 alone, over $38.8 billion has been spent in the United States in e-commerce transactions over mobile devices.
If you were to login to your Google Analytics account, you would be pleasantly surprised with the number of visitors who are already visiting your website from their mobile devices. Nothing less than 25% of your website visitors would be browsing your website on their mobile phones. If you attach every visitor to your website with a dollar value, you would realize you are putting away one fourth of your probable revenue already if your visitors are seeing character chunks or tiny fonts on their phones. With the explosion of smartphones, it is all the more sensible, practical, and profitable to switch from a traditional layout to a responsive one for your website.
More Reasons…
Other than the statistics which certainly make the picture clear, there are some strong and definite reasons that make the change a vital one.
Though it may look easy, developing such a website is a knotty process. Optimizing your site for all the mobile devices takes time, skilled professionals, and a project manager to oversee the process or you can also choose to smart-source the work via external partners. Smart monitoring of the traffic including the demographics and earlier visits of the customers should be analyzed to understand usage patterns of mobile users and navigation should be tuned for greater conversions. Evaluating the customer mindset and turning it to your advantage is important too. The initial setup costs for accommodating all this may seem slightly high, but it is far less than what is needed for a mobile app, if you are looking at not losing out on mobile traffic.
To maintain the edge over your competition and keep up with the latest trends, a highly flexible design is vital. For an unrivalled position globally, you need to pull out all stops and get your business to the mobile savvy population, and a responsive website is just the right step in that direction.
Have a responsive website yourself? What are the benefits you have felt so far? Feel free to post your experiences for others to learn.
Your site’s speed is a snow-ball. It culminates somewhere into your brand’s ultimate profitability, impact,…
It’s not a choice or a perk anymore. But working from home, still comes with…
Engaging, high-quality content is always in demand, no matter what industry you're in. Your content…
Like any form of digital marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can be a game-changer for the…
Marketing for B2B companies has always been challenging. The vast majority of marketing techniques and…
In the world of digital marketing, marketers make a habit of separating myth from reality—of…