These days, it is no longer enough that a website is aesthetically appealing and functional. It is essential for it to be responsive, too. In fact, a responsive website design is considered one of the most important web design trends for 2017.

What Is Responsive Web Design?

It is an approach which aims to give users an optimal viewing experience, regardless of the type of device they’re using. With a responsive web design, the layout of the page adjusts depending on the screen size and capabilities of the device. If your website isn’t optimised for varying screens, a customer on her smartphone would need to scroll on all four directions just to read your content. Similarly, she’d need to repeatedly resize the page just to fully view the page.

Why Is A Responsive Web Design Necessary?

A responsive website is important because browsing is no longer limited to a desktop or a laptop. Customers now view websites using different devices of varying screen sizes and capabilities such as mobile phones, tablets, televisions and even gaming consoles.

Currently, nearly 50% of Internet users say that the primary device they use for browsing is their mobile phone. This isn’t surprising since, as early as 2015, users accessing the Internet through their mobile phones outnumbered those using their desktop. Moreover, some websites have 80% visits via smartphones and tablets. Experts expect this upward trend to continue, especially since these devices are becoming more and more indispensable.

What Are The Risks Of Not Having A Responsive Website?

One of the reasons why your company has a website is to reach more people and increase your revenues. Converting these online visitors to customers is impossible if your website is not user-friendly. You cannot expect them to patiently navigate the website.

Keep in mind, as per studies, users these days have very short attention span. If a page doesn’t load in two minutes or if the UI isn’t user-friendly, they abandon the website. If this happens, you lose the opportunity to convert visitors to clients and earn additional revenues.

Moreover, choosing not to shift to a responsive website design may hurt your search engine ranking. This is because Google uses a site’s mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. Simply put, if your site is mobile friendly, you are rewarded; if it’s not, you are penalised and your ranking suffers. A poor ranking can drastically hurt your website traffic. This translates to more opportunities lost.

Unfortunately, it is not just potential customers you drive away; you also discourage existing clients from using your website. Failure to keep your customers engaged is definitely not going to do your business good.

Meanwhile, there are those who opt to have two websites: a main website and a mobile site. You can choose to go this route. However, be ready to spend more as the cost of maintaining two websites is more expensive than paying for the creation of a responsive website.

In summary, browsing websites using smartphones and other devices is going to be the norm. Your company has to keep up with this trend or run the risk of losing opportunities, clients and revenues. Worst, you may end up losing your company. You definitely do not want this to happen. So, make sure your company has a responsive website!

Do you want to know more about responsive website design? Call us today at 019609023!